BLS OEWS · May 2025

U.S. occupational wage statistics

Key findings compiled live from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics extract. Every figure below is computed from the WageDex database at request time; nothing is typed in by hand.

830
Detailed occupations
$61,390
Median of occupation medians
54
State & territory areas

The national picture

Across 825 occupations with a published BLS median, half sit at or below $61,390 a year. That is a median of occupation medians, not a worker-level U.S. wage.

$61,390
Median of 825 occupation medians
$125,861
Management weighted mean of medians
$91,540
District of Columbia All Occupations median

OEWS estimates come from employer surveys. They are not job-board listings, offer advice, or a cost-of-living ranking.

Key findings

Standalone, citable statements from the linked BLS extract. Free to reuse with attribution to WageDex (CC BY 4.0 compilation over public-domain OEWS figures).

  • 830 detailed SOC occupations are in the WageDex OEWS extract. 825 of them have a published national median wage (BLS suppresses the rest). Every figure below is recomputed from that extract at request time.
  • $61,390 is the median of those 825 published occupation medians for May 2025. Half of occupations with a published median sit at or below this figure. It is not a worker-level U.S. median wage.
  • 4,305,810 employment is published for Home Health and Personal Care Aides, the largest detailed occupation in this extract (2.8% of summed detailed-occupation employment). Employment counts and wage medians are separate OEWS columns; the largest occupation is not the highest-paying one.
  • 36,168 occupation-by-state rows join detailed occupations to 54 state and territory areas (plus 528 metro areas elsewhere on WageDex). The All Occupations (00-0000) state medians below use BLS's published area totals, not an average of those occupation rows.
  • $91,540 is the highest published All Occupations median among 54 OEWS state and territory areas (District of Columbia). The lowest of those 54 is Puerto Rico at $28,680. Restricting to the 50 states (excluding D.C. and territories), Massachusetts leads at $63,590 and Mississippi sits at $40,120. D.C. is a city-state, not a 50-state peer.
  • 3.6× is the gap between the employment-weighted mean of detailed-occupation medians for Management ($125,861) and Food Preparation and Serving Related ($35,157). That derived benchmark is not a worker-level group mean or median.
  • +11.6% is the largest May 2024 to May 2025 national-median rise among detailed occupations with at least 100,000 published employment and a like-for-like SOC vintage: Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education moved from $64,580 to $72,040 (1,065,210 employment in the current release). Smaller occupations can move more in percentage terms; they are excluded from this ranking.
  • $117,330 is the 90th percentile of the 825 published occupation medians; the 10th percentile is $38,760. This is a distribution of occupation medians, not a distribution of individual workers' wages.

Highest All Occupations medians

BLS published All Occupations (00-0000) annual median wage by OEWS area. D.C. is a city-state; territories sit in the same 54-area table and are not 50-state peers.

1. D.C.: $91,5401. D.C.$91,5402. Massachusetts: $63,5902. Massachusetts$63,5903. Washington: $62,9903. Washington$62,9904. Alaska: $61,0004. Alaska$61,0005. Colorado: $59,8005. Colorado$59,8006. Connecticut: $59,6906. Connecticut$59,6907. New York: $59,6707. New York$59,6708. Maryland: $59,5108. Maryland$59,510
Top All Occupations medians (May 2025)
Read the chart as text
Label Value
1. D.C. $91,540
2. Massachusetts $63,590
3. Washington $62,990
4. Alaska $61,000
5. Colorado $59,800
6. Connecticut $59,690
7. New York $59,670
8. Maryland $59,510

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) · 2025 All Occupations medians are BLS area totals, not averages of occupation rows.

State median as a share of D.C.

Mississippi's All Occupations median ($40,120) as a percent of the District of Columbia's ($91,540). Among the 50 states Mississippi is the lowest; D.C. leads the 54-area table.

Mississippi median as a share of D.C.

0%100%44%
Mississippi median as a share of D.C.

How to read these numbers

OEWS wages are employer-survey estimates for a May reference period. Occupation medians, All Occupations area medians, and employment-weighted means of occupation medians are three different constructions and are not interchangeable. BLS withholds some cells for confidentiality; WageDex leaves those empty rather than filling them in. For methods and caveats see the methodology. Downloads live on the open data hub.

Download the national occupation extract: occupational wages CSV (CC BY 4.0 compilation). State-level rows: occupation-state CSV .

Reuse this extract

The same OEWS rows power occupation, state, and metro pages. Cite the finding, then download the file.

  • Download the national and state CSVs from the open-data hub. Open data
  • Compare All Occupations area medians on the state ranking. Rankings
  • Read how WageDex maps OEWS columns and suppressions. Methodology

These pages restate published survey estimates. They are not salary-offer advice or a cost-of-living ranking.

Source data and WageDex calculations are identified in context on this page. National occupation medians, All Occupations area totals, and employment-weighted means of occupation medians are separate OEWS constructions queried live from the same database. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 2025.