What’s the average salary in the US by age?

As you advance through your career, you may be wondering how your salary compares to that of your peers.

Thankfully, the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) keeps track of employment information—including salaries—at the national level. Read on to learn more about the BLS’ salary statistics and how your salary stacks up.

Key takeaways

• Median salary statistics in the U.S. are reported by the BLS.
• Age is one helpful way to compare median salaries in the U.S. But other factors—like industry, location and education level—can impact salaries too.
• Pay gaps exist between the sexes and between ethnicities and races.
• Taking a look at the BLS median salary data can help you compare your salary to that of your peers—and even help you negotiate salary.

Whenever the BLS reports “average” salary statistics, what the BLS really reports is the “median”—the salary right in the middle. In other words, half of workers earned less than the median, and half of workers earned more than the median.

But why does the BLS report the median instead of the average? The reason is that the very highest salaries are so atypical that they can skew the data. By relying on the median instead of the average, the BLS can paint a more accurate picture of typical income levels.

One helpful way of looking at median salaries is by age group since it allows you to compare your salary to that of others who are around the same age.

While age is one helpful way to consider median salary data, there are other factors that appear to influence salaries too. For instance, salaries often differ by industry and location. And another major factor that can impact salary is education level.

Pay gaps

As the BLS points out, pay gaps—other than those related to factors like age, education, industry and location—exist between the sexes and between ethnicities and races.

For example, women only earned 83.2% of what men earned in the first quarter of 2022. And, as the BLS explains, “Among the major race and ethnicity groups, median weekly earnings of Blacks ($840) and Hispanics ($799) working full-time jobs were lower than those of Whites ($1,064) and Asians ($1,362).”

Thanks to the BLS, it’s easy to compare salaries in the U.S. based on a variety of factors. And by taking a look at the data, you can see how your salary compares to that of your peers. It could even help you negotiate salary when the time comes.