If you are to ask the question, what is the average income in America? The answer can a tricky one. This is because income statistics are generally give as median figures. The Census bureau, the main source of up-to-date information on incomes, likewise avoids placing average incomes as a statistical measurement of incomes in the United States on their websites. Does this mean that it is impossible to come up with average salaries of US households? Technically, the answer is yes, but theoretically, after slicing and dicing the statistical data available, we can get an approximate figure. Income statistics are generally given by age, race, income level and gender, among others. However, beyond the Census data, there are companies that track income and salary information by job title, job type and years of experience. I find these to more accurate for individuals looking into specific career fields.
Why Can’t We Just Use The Census Data?
Suppose 10 high school students graduate and 8 of them go to directly to college while 3 do not. This means that the 8 college students are statistically unemployed. Now, supposing one of the three students that did not go to college takes an entry level job and earns $30,000 per year and another is a sports prodigy and gets signed to a professional contract worth two million dollars per year. Calculating the average salaries for these ten people would come to about $200,000 per year. It is obviously clear that this figure doesn’t give a true picture of the salary situation.
The following information is provided by Payscale.com
Looking beyond salaries by job title, the chart on National Salary Range by Years of Experience also provides insight into salary trends in the U.S. At the low end of the national salary range, employees with less than one year of experience earn a median income of about $44,000. After at least 20 years of experience, the median annual income increases to around $74,000. Tracking the national salary range by years of experience shows that the average job income tends to jump significantly after five and ten years of experience.
Perhaps more importantly, though, is the evidence that salaries for all professions tend to increase over time. Breaking down the national salary range into Salaries by City, we can see that median job salaries are fairly similar across major U.S. cities, ranging from about $60,000 in Atlanta to around $67,000 in New York. This gives us a general view of what people in these cities are earning, but cost of living is another important factor to consider when researching salaries by city. There might be a $7,000 difference in average income between Atlanta and New York, but a Cost of Living Comparison between the two cities reveals that the cost of housing alone is 77 percent lower in Atlanta. You can use the PayScale Cost of Living Calculator to find both cost of living data and the median salary range for jobs in other U.S. cities.
