Salary Percentiles Explained: What the 10th to 90th Mean

Learn what salary percentiles mean, how BLS calculates them, what the 25th percentile says about pay, and how to read your own offer against the data.

By the Salary Atlas editorial team · Published 2026-10-31

A salary percentile tells you where a pay figure sits in the range of what workers earn. The 25th percentile is the wage that 25% of workers in an occupation earn less than. The 50th is the median, with half of workers below and half above. The 90th is the wage that only the top tenth of earners reach. Read together, the percentiles give you a realistic range, which a single "average salary" never does.

TL;DR

A percentile is a cut point: at the Nth percentile, N% of workers in that occupation earn less and the rest earn more.
The 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles are the most useful for judging an offer. The 10th and 90th show the floor and the ceiling.
Salary percentiles describe one occupation. Income percentiles describe all households or all earners, so you can't swap one for the other.
Percentiles describe what workers currently earn, not what employers offer new hires. Experience, location and employer size move you along the scale.
To place a figure like $150,000, you need the right dataset (one job, one state, or all U.S. earners) before you can name a percentile.

What a salary percentile actually measures
The percentiles you will see most often
How salary percentiles are calculated
What it means to be in the 25th percentile
Salary percentiles vs. income percentiles
How to compare percentiles across jobs, places and years
How job seekers, students and employers can use percentiles
Common mistakes when reading percentiles
Our perspective
Look up your own percentiles
FAQ
Sources

What a salary percentile actually measures

Imagine every person who works in one occupation, lined up from lowest paid to highest paid. A percentile marks a spot in that line. CareerOneStop, the U.S. Department of Labor's career site, describes a wage percentile as the amount below which a given percentage of workers in that occupation earn. At the 50th percentile, the median, half of workers earn less and half earn more.

Two details matter here.

First, a percentile is a position, not a score. Being "in the 75th percentile" does not mean you earn 75% of something. It means 75% of the comparison group earns less than you do.

Second, a percentile always belongs to a comparison group. The 75th percentile for registered nurses in one state is a different number from the 75th percentile for registered nurses nationwide, and a different number again from the 75th percentile of all U.S. workers. When someone quotes you a percentile without naming the group, you have only half the information.

The percentiles you will see most often

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes wage estimates through its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program. CareerOneStop presents these estimates at the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles, updated annually. Here is how to read each one.

Percentile	What it means	How to think about it
10th	10% of workers earn less	The entry-level floor. Often new hires, part-year workers, or low-cost areas
25th	25% earn less, 75% earn more	A common starting range for people with some training but little tenure
50th (median)	Half earn less, half earn more	The midpoint. The best single "typical pay" number
75th	75% earn less	Experienced, high-performing, or in higher-paying locations and employers
90th	90% earn less	The top of the range. Senior specialists, supervisors, top-paying metros

The gaps between these numbers tell you as much as the numbers themselves. If the 10th and 90th percentiles are close together, pay in that job is fairly uniform. If the 90th is several times the 10th, the occupation has a lot of room to grow, or a lot of variation by employer, city or specialty.

For an hourly view of the same scale, see our guide to hourly wage percentiles from the 10th to the 90th.

How salary percentiles are calculated

The method is simple sorting. OEWS percentiles are found by arranging the reported wage rates for each occupation from highest to lowest. The 10th, 25th and 75th percentiles are the rates at which 10%, 25% and 75% of reported wage rates fall below.

Here is an illustration with made-up numbers, so you can see the logic. Suppose ten workers in a small occupation earn these hourly wages, sorted from lowest to highest:

$16, $18, $19, $21, $22, $24, $26, $29, $34, $45

The median sits between the fifth and sixth values: ($22 + $24) / 2 = $23 an hour.
The 25th percentile lands near the third value, about $19.
The 75th percentile lands near the eighth value, about $29.
The single $45 earner pulls the average above the median but has almost no effect on the percentiles.

That last point is why percentiles are more honest than averages for pay. A handful of very high earners can drag a mean upward. Percentiles stay anchored to where people actually sit in the line. Our guide to calculating the median wage in four steps walks through the middle of this scale in more detail.

Real datasets use thousands of reported wages and weighting, so the exact figures come from the statistical agency, not from a spreadsheet at home. Use the arithmetic above to understand the idea, and the published tables to get the numbers.

What counts as pay in OEWS data

The definition of "wage" changes what a percentile means. OEWS estimates include base rates, cost-of-living allowances and commissions, but exclude overtime, shift differentials and non-production bonuses.

In practice this means a nurse who takes home a lot of overtime or night-shift pay will see total earnings above the percentile that matches her base rate. A salesperson on commission will see commission counted. When you compare an offer to the percentile data, compare base pay to base pay.

What it means to be in the 25th percentile

If your salary is at the 25th percentile for your occupation, 25% of comparable workers earn less than you and about 75% earn more. It is the lower end of the typical range, not the bottom.

That can mean different things depending on your situation:

You are early in your career. The 25th percentile is common for someone with a year or two of experience. It is a reasonable place to start, and you can check how far the 50th and 75th are from it to see your growth room.
You have been in the role for years. Being at the 25th percentile after several years may suggest you are paid below market for the role, or work in a lower-paying region or employer type. It is worth comparing against your state's figures before a review.
Your employer uses pay grades. Some staff will always sit low in a range. NovoInsights notes that market percentiles reflect the distribution of what current employees are paid, not what companies offer new hires, and that pay-grade structures often leave some employees at or below the 25th percentile.

The last point is a useful correction to a common reading. A percentile in published data is a snapshot of existing workers. It is not a promise about what a new offer should be, and it is not a verdict on whether you are underpaid. It is one input.

Salary percentiles vs. income percentiles

Searches for "what percentile is $150,000" or "$300,000" often mix up two different measures. They answer different questions.

	Salary (wage) percentiles	Income percentiles
Comparison group	Workers in one occupation, often by state	All households or all earners
Typical source	BLS OEWS	Census Bureau surveys
What is counted	Wages and salaries paid by employers	Pretax money income from all sources
Best for	Judging an offer or raise for a specific job	Seeing where a household sits in the whole economy

The Census Bureau's report presents U.S. household income estimates for calendar year 2024 based on pretax money income. That includes sources beyond a paycheck. The Bureau also reported that U.S. median household income was $87,460 in 2025. That is a household figure, so two earners can combine to reach it. It is not the typical salary of one worker.

Census earnings figures for individuals follow their own definition. The Bureau says earnings are the sum of wages, salary and self-employment income, and that a full-time, year-round worker works at least 35 hours a week and at least 50 weeks a year. A percentile built only on full-time, year-round workers will place the same pay differently than one built on everyone with earnings.

The spread at the top and bottom is also something the Census tracks. The post-tax income ratio between the 90th and 10th percentile households rose from 8.6 in 2009 to 9.9 in 2024. That shows how a 90/10 comparison works: it divides the 90th percentile by the 10th to show how far apart the top and bottom are.

So what percentile is $150,000, or $300,000?

There is no single answer, and any site that gives you one number is picking a comparison group for you. The same $150,000 can be:

far above the 90th percentile for a retail or food service occupation,
near the middle for some physician or engineering management roles,
a high but not unusual household income in an expensive metro area,
a different percentile again among individual full-time workers than among households.

Before asking what percentile a number is, decide what you want to compare it with. Choose one of these:

Your own occupation. Look up your job title and find where $150,000 falls between the published 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles.
Your occupation in your state. Do the same with state-level figures, because the percentiles shift a lot between states.
All earners or all households. Use Census income tables, and check whether they cover individuals or households, and pretax or post-tax.

The same logic applies at $300,000. Whichever group you choose, the published tables show the comparison. Tools that guess your percentile from a few inputs often rely on survey or modeled data, so check what they are built on.

How to compare percentiles across jobs, places and years

Percentiles become useful when you line them up. CareerOneStop lets you compare wage percentiles by occupation and location with tables and maps covering U.S., state and regional data. Here are the comparisons worth making.

Across occupations

Compare the median first, then the spread from the 25th to the 75th percentile. Two jobs with the same median can have very different ranges. One may be tightly clustered, while the other pays a lot more to people who specialize or move into supervision.

Across locations

Pay differs by state and by metro area. Compare the same occupation and the same percentile in two places, and also weigh housing and other living costs before deciding that a higher percentile figure means more spending power. Our average salary by state page and the guide to finding BLS salary data by job and state show how to do this with mean, median and percentile columns side by side.

Across years

Be cautious with trend claims. Percentile estimates come from annual releases, and the definitions of occupations and areas can change between them. Look at a figure's reference period, and compare releases only when you know the method held steady. Our figures are refreshed annually and we do not draw trend lines the data cannot support.

How job seekers, students and employers can use percentiles

If you are job seeking or negotiating

Aim your research at the 25th to 75th range for your job and state. Place yourself by experience:

Little experience in the field: the 25th percentile and below is a normal landing zone.
Solid experience and a track record: the median to the 75th is a fair ask.
Rare skills, certifications, or a high-cost metro: the 75th to 90th can be reasonable.

Credentials can move you along that scale in some fields. Critical care nurses weighing a certification, for example, can read about the CCRN's salary and career impact when thinking about how to move up within their range.

When you ask for a number, name the source. "The BLS 75th percentile for this role in our state is X" lands better than "I think I'm worth more."

If you are a student

Look at the 10th and 90th together. The 10th shows what a rough start can look like, and the 90th shows what a strong career in the field can reach. The median is where most people end up, so use it to judge whether a degree's cost makes sense.

If you are an employer or HR professional

Percentiles are the backbone of a pay range. Many employers target the median for a competent, fully trained employee and set the range edges using the 25th and 75th. Remember that published percentiles describe current workers across many employers, not new-hire offers, so adjust for your location, your industry and your budget. Two of our guides go deeper: how to set pay ranges and market compensation analysis.

Common mistakes when reading percentiles

Treating the median as the starting salary. It describes all workers, new and veteran.
Comparing total pay to base-wage percentiles. OEWS leaves out overtime and non-production bonuses, so put your base pay beside it.
Mixing household and individual figures. A household income percentile says little about one person's salary.
Ignoring the group. A percentile is only as meaningful as the occupation and area behind it.
Reading a percentile as a grade. The 25th is not "bad" and the 90th is not "best." They are positions in a distribution that reflect experience, location and employer.

Our perspective

Most of the salary confusion we see comes from one thing: a number with no source and no comparison group. A single "average salary" hides the shape of the data. Percentiles restore it, but only when you can see where they came from.

That is why we build Salary Atlas around BLS wage data, with each figure linked back to its origin and no paywall or signup between you and the numbers. We do not estimate wages, fill gaps with invented values, or rely on self-reported or scraped figures. If a figure appears on our site, you can follow it to the source and check it yourself.

Our advice is to start with your job title and state, read the 25th, median and 75th together, and treat the 10th and 90th as the edges of the realistic range. Then ask what each number includes before you act on it. A good salary decision rests on a clear comparison, and percentiles give you one.
Joelen Zyoktova

Look up your own percentiles

You can see the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentile wages for your occupation without an account. Search your job title on Salary Atlas, where hourly and annual figures are drawn from BLS data and each one links to its source.

If location is your main question, open the state-by-state salary tables. To see exactly how we handle the data, read our methodology.

FAQ

How are percentiles calculated?

Wage rates are sorted from lowest to highest, and each percentile is the point below which that share of workers falls. For OEWS, the 10th, 25th and 75th percentiles are the wage rates at which 10%, 25% and 75% of reported rates fall below. The 50th percentile is the median.

What does it mean to be in the 25th percentile for salary?

It means about a quarter of comparable workers earn less than you and about three quarters earn more. It is the lower part of the typical range, and it is common early in a career. Compare it with your state's median for your job to see how much room there is.

What percentile is a $150,000 salary?

It depends on the group you compare with. Among workers in one occupation, $150,000 can sit anywhere from below the median to above the 90th percentile. Among all households, the comparison point is a figure like the $87,460 median household income reported for 2025. Pick the group first, then check the published tables for that group.

Is the median the same as the 50th percentile?

Yes. The median is the 50th percentile: half of workers earn less and half earn more. It is usually a better measure of typical pay than the average, because a few very high earners don't move it much.

Do salary percentiles show what a new hire should be paid?

No. They describe the distribution of what current workers are paid, not what employers offer people who have just been hired. Use them to set a range for your negotiation or pay structure, then adjust for experience, location and the specific employer.