Guides

The 10th/25th/50th/75th/90th percentiles BLS publishes explained — and why comparing your salary to a single "average" from a self-reported site is the wrong read.

Company job titles are inconsistent and inflated; BLS's standardized SOC occupation codes aren't. How to compare pay across a career change using the same occupation definition, not a title.

How to compare BLS wage data across metro areas for a relocation or remote offer — what a metropolitan statistical area actually is, and why these are nominal wages with no cost-of-living adjustment.

Most "best jobs" lists blend survey pay, growth projections, and editorial opinion into one score. Here's what a ranking built only from BLS OEWS median wages does and doesn't tell you.

"You earn more than 82% of Americans" means nothing until you know who was counted and how. What a wage percentile built from BLS employer data measures — and why it differs from household-income ranks.

"Most in-demand jobs" lists are usually scraped job postings — a measure of churn and recruiting activity, not employment. What BLS's published employment counts actually measure, and how to read them.

Most cost-of-living calculators run your salary through a proprietary blend of crowdsourced prices. The federal alternative — BEA Regional Price Parities — is one published index and one division you can check by hand.

Self-reported salary sites skew high and lack transparency about sample size or job-title accuracy. This guide shows how anchoring your negotiation to BLS OEWS percentiles gives you a defensible, employer-recognized floor.

BLS metropolitan statistical areas often bundle rural counties with urban job centers, flattening the wage figures you use to benchmark offers. Here's how to read the geography before you trust the number.

One company's 'Senior Engineer' is another's 'Engineer II.' This guide shows how mapping both titles to the same BLS SOC code reveals the true pay difference and prevents you from undervaluing a leveled move.

BLS OEWS surveys employer payroll records — not self-reported salaries — and captures bonuses and shift differentials while excluding equity and benefits. Understanding those boundaries prevents misreading a percentile number.

The median wage tells you where the middle of a field sits, but it hides whether that field has compressed, fixed pay or wide variance where negotiation moves real money. The 25th-to-75th percentile spread is the number that actually tells you which market you're in.