Key takeaways
- The US mean salary ($69,770) sits about $7,800 above the median ($61,984), because high earners pull the average up.
- Average pay by state ranges from $52.89/hr in DC down to $28.25/hr in Mississippi, more than double.
- By role, a software developer’s mean wage ($148,100) runs roughly 3.5x a customer service rep’s (~$42,830).
- Education level tracks closely with pay: a bachelor’s degree earns roughly 63% more per week than a high school diploma alone.
- For roles where location is flexible, hiring the same role from Africa typically costs 55 to 65% less than the US figure.
This page focuses on national and state-level wage data. For California-specific detail, see our Average Salary in California guide.
Average Salary vs Median Salary in the United States: What’s the Difference?
The $69,770 figure from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey is a mean, an average pulled upward by high earners in fields like finance, medicine, and executive management. It does not mean half of US workers earn more and half earn less. For that, you want the median: full-time US workers had median weekly earnings of $1,192 in Q4 2024, or about $61,984 annualized, according to BLS Current Population Survey data. The mean sits roughly $7,800 higher than the median nationally, a gap driven entirely by high earners at the top pulling the average up, not by typical pay rising.
This is exactly why a national mean figure and a specific state page can look inconsistent at first glance. Our California average salary guide cites a typical monthly gross range of $5,300 to $5,750, closer to $63,600 to $69,000 annualized, while the BLS mean hourly wage for all California occupations runs meaningfully higher, again, because a mean pulled up by Silicon Valley tech and executive pay isn’t the same number as what a typical worker actually takes home.
People also ask: why is average salary higher than what most people earn? Because “average” almost always means the mathematical mean in salary reporting, and pay distributions in the US are heavily right-skewed, a relatively small number of very high earners pull the mean well above what a typical, or median, worker earns. If you want a number that represents the middle of the distribution rather than getting inflated by outliers, look specifically for median figures, not just anything labeled “average.”
Keeping that mean-vs-median distinction in mind is what makes the state and role breakdowns below actually useful, rather than just more numbers to skim past.
Average Salary in the United States by State
A note on this table before you read it: this is a different, older BLS series than the mean-wage figures above. It’s private-sector-only hourly earnings, not seasonally adjusted, as of March 2025, reported by Visual Capitalist, sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS released a newer, all-industries state-level OEWS dataset (May 2025 reference period) in May 2026, methodologically consistent with the figures elsewhere on this page, but it’s published through a JavaScript data tool that can’t be pulled into this guide directly. Treat the figures below as directionally useful and over a year old, not as current as the national $69,770 mean above.
The 10 highest and 10 lowest states by average hourly earnings:
| Highest | Hourly | Lowest | Hourly |
|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | $52.89 | Mississippi | $28.25 |
| Massachusetts | $42.50 | Louisiana | $29.17 |
| Washington | $41.82 | New Mexico | $29.19 |
| California | $40.93 | West Virginia | $29.86 |
| Colorado | $39.20 | Arkansas | $29.95 |
| Connecticut | $39.08 | Kentucky | $30.18 |
| New York | $38.71 | Oklahoma | $30.65 |
| Minnesota | $38.25 | Tennessee | $30.75 |
| New Jersey | $37.98 | Iowa | $30.94 |
| Alaska | $37.65 | South Dakota | $31.16 |
Average Salary in the United States by Job Title
State averages blend every occupation together, which hides more than it reveals if you’re budgeting a specific hire. Here’s national mean wage data by role, from the same BLS OEWS May 2025 release used above:
| Role | Mean annual | Mean hourly |
|---|---|---|
| Software developers | $148,100 | $71.20 |
| Human resources managers | $164,230 | $78.96 |
| General and operations managers | $134,940 | $64.87 |
| Software QA analysts and testers | $111,490 | $53.60 |
| Network and computer systems administrators | $103,680 | $49.85 |
| Web developers | $98,770 | $47.49 |
| Business operations specialists | $92,830 | $44.63 |
| Customer service representatives | ~$42,830 | $20.59 (median)* |
*Customer service representative figure is the median hourly wage from BLS’s May 2024 Occupational Outlook Handbook data (most recent published for this role), annualized at 2,080 hours; all other figures are mean wages from the May 2025 OEWS release, flagged here rather than smoothed over.
The spread matters more than any single “average salary” figure: a software developer’s mean wage runs roughly 3.5 times higher than a customer service representative’s. Blending unrelated roles into one state or national average erases exactly the information you need to budget a specific position, which is the same lesson as the mean-vs-median point above, just applied to job title instead of income percentile.
Has Average Salary Grown in Recent Years?
The national mean annual wage has risen from $61,900 in May 2022 to $67,920 in May 2024 to $69,770 in May 2025, according to consecutive BLS OEWS releases, a nominal increase of roughly 12.7% over three years. That’s nominal growth, not adjusted for inflation, so it doesn’t by itself tell you whether typical workers gained real purchasing power, only that the dollar figure moved up.
Average Salary by Education Level
Education level is one of the more reliable predictors of pay, based on 2025 BLS Current Population Survey data on median weekly earnings for full-time workers age 25 and over:
| Education level | Weekly | Approx. annual |
|---|---|---|
| Less than a high school diploma | $770 | ~$40,040 |
| High school graduate, no college | $966 | ~$50,230 |
| Some college, no degree | $1,062 | ~$55,220 |
| Associate degree | $1,135 | ~$59,020 |
| Bachelor’s degree only | $1,578 | ~$82,060 |
| Master’s degree | $1,876 | ~$97,550 |
| Professional degree | $2,294 | ~$119,290 |
| Doctoral degree | $2,307 | ~$119,960 |
2025 annual averages (11-month, excluding October due to a federal government shutdown that paused data collection). The jump from bachelor’s to master’s ($1,578 to $1,876/week) is smaller in percentage terms than high school to bachelor’s ($966 to $1,578/week).
A note on experience level: unlike education, BLS doesn’t publish a systematic national breakdown of pay by years of experience. Most “entry-level vs. senior” charts online draw on private surveys (Glassdoor, Payscale, Levels.fyi) that don’t carry the same rigor as the BLS data used throughout this page, so it’s left out here rather than mixed in at a lower confidence level.
People also ask: why does average salary vary so much by state? Industry mix is the biggest driver. States with concentrated finance, biotech, or technology sectors (Massachusetts, Washington, California) report higher mean wages because those industries pay well above the national average and the mean captures that concentration directly. States weighted more toward agriculture, hospitality, and retail sit lower, not because typical workers there are paid less for the same job, but because the overall job mix skews toward lower-wage sectors.
How to Use Average Salary Data to Budget a Hire
If you’re planning compensation for an actual role, neither the national mean nor a single state’s mean wage is the number to use directly, both are too broad to reflect what a specific role in a specific location commands. The more useful approach: pull role-specific data from the BLS OEWS state and occupation tables directly, which break wages down by both location and job title, rather than relying on any single headline “average salary” number, including the ones on this page.
Average US Salary vs Hiring the Same Role From Africa
Every figure above describes what a role costs filled in the US. For location-flexible roles, those same BLS mean wages can be compared directly against hiring the same role through Betternship’s EOR service across its 15+ covered African countries:
| Role | US mean annual | Est. from Africa | Est. savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software developer | $148,100 | ~$50,000-$65,000 | ~55-65% |
| Software QA analyst/tester | $111,490 | ~$38,000-$48,000 | ~55-65% |
| Web developer | $98,770 | ~$34,000-$42,000 | ~55-65% |
| Business operations specialist | $92,830 | ~$32,000-$40,000 | ~55-65% |
| Customer service representative | ~$42,830 | ~$15,000-$19,000 | ~55-65% |
US figures are verified BLS mean wages from the table above. Africa figures are Betternship EOR cost estimates, not published rate cards, confirm exact pricing before budgeting.
This isn’t an argument that every role should move. It means that for roles where location is genuinely flexible, the gap between the US figure and the equivalent African cost is usually large enough to be worth comparing directly before finalizing a budget.
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Average Salary in the United States: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the current average salary in the United States?
The mean annual wage across all occupations was $69,770 as of May 2025, per BLS OEWS data. The median, a more typical figure, was closer to $61,984 based on Q4 2024 earnings data.
Why do different sources report different average salary figures?
Sources vary in whether they report mean or median, which time period they use, and whether the figure covers all workers or full-time workers only. Always check which measure is being cited before comparing numbers across sources.
Which US states have the highest average salaries?
Massachusetts, Washington, and California report the highest mean hourly wages nationally, driven by concentrated finance, technology, and biotech employment in those states.
Does average salary data account for cost of living?
No. BLS wage data reflects nominal pay, not purchasing power. A higher average salary in a high-cost state like California or Massachusetts doesn’t necessarily mean more disposable income than a lower average salary in a lower-cost state.
How does Betternship use salary data for hiring decisions?
Betternship doesn’t set US salaries, its own EOR service operates across Africa. This page exists as a reference for companies evaluating US hiring costs, including as a comparison point against hiring the same role from Africa at a lower total cost.