Am I Underpaid? How to Read BLS Salary Data

The national 90th percentile for software developers sits at $211,450 in base salary — yet developers earning $180,000 regularly assume they are “well above market” without knowing they may be near the 75th percentile in their metropolitan statistical area, not above the 90th. That mismatch defines the central failure of how professionals read salary data.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program — OEWS — is the most defensible public dataset for salary benchmarking in the United States. It covers approximately 1.1 million employer establishments across roughly 830 occupations, with percentile wage breakdowns by occupation and metropolitan statistical area. The May 2024 OEWS release, published April 2, 2025, is the most recent annual edition. All wage figures in this article are drawn from it unless explicitly noted otherwise.

Key Numbers: BLS OEWS May 2024

Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2024 (released April 2, 2025). Software developer percentiles confirmed from BLS OOH and secondary salary aggregators citing BLS OEWS May 2024. *Financial manager 25th and 75th percentile figures are secondary-derived estimates based on BLS OEWS May 2024 data; verify against the BLS OEWS national XLS file at bls.gov/oes/tables.htm. †BLS top-codes the 90th percentile at $239,200 for high-earning occupations — the actual 90th-percentile wage is at minimum this figure and likely higher in high-cost MSAs.

What the Percentile Structure Actually Tells You

Mean wages pull high in nearly every professional occupation. Software developers had a May 2024 mean of $144,570 versus a median of $133,080 — an $11,490 gap driven by the upper tail. If a recruiter cites “average pay” in your field, they may be referencing the mean, which places the bar $11,000 above what half the workforce actually earns. That distinction is not trivial in a negotiation.

The percentile breakpoints are what matter for benchmarking. The 75th percentile ($169,000 for software developers) marks the threshold above which only 25 percent of workers in that occupation fall nationally. The 90th percentile ($211,450) is where only 10 percent sit. Knowing which band you’re in — and which band your offer falls into — converts a subjective “is this good?” into a measurable answer.

OEWS also publishes MSA-level data for approximately 530 areas. A software developer at the national 75th percentile ($169,000) is likely positioned near the 55th or 60th percentile in the San Francisco or Seattle MSA, where the wage distribution is compressed upward by the concentration of high-paying employers. Software engineer salary percentile data by city shows precisely this compression across major markets. Skipping the MSA lookup is the single most common mistake in self-directed salary benchmarking.

Finding Your Occupation Code

OEWS uses Standard Occupational Classification codes — six-digit identifiers — to organize data. The right code matters. “Software developer” (15-1252) is distinct from “computer systems analyst” (15-1121), “software quality assurance analyst” (15-1253), and “computer and information systems manager” (11-3021). Each has its own wage distribution. Using the wrong code produces a benchmarking result that is structurally incorrect regardless of how precisely the rest of the analysis is executed.

The BLS maintains an occupation profile page for each SOC code at bls.gov/oes. Each profile shows national employment, mean wage, and the five-percentile wage distribution, with links to state and MSA breakdowns from the same page. For those benchmarking multiple roles simultaneously — building a compensation framework for a team, or comparing offers across different functions — the downloadable national cross-industry XLS file at bls.gov/oes/tables.htm is the most efficient format. It contains all ~830 occupations in one spreadsheet.

One structural limitation worth understanding upfront: OEWS uses a three-year rolling panel methodology. May 2024 estimates incorporate six semiannual panels of employer survey data going back to May 2021. For occupations with rapid wage growth in recent years, published percentile figures may run below current market rates. The BLS is transparent about this design — it enables more granular geographic and industry breakdowns at the cost of some recency. In practice, for fast-moving segments, treat OEWS figures as a floor. The salary benchmarking guide for $150k+ earners details how to supplement OEWS with secondary sources where this lag is material.

Three Occupations, Worked Through the Data

Software Developers

The national wage distribution for software developers is wide. The 25th-to-90th-percentile range runs from $103,050 to $211,450 — a $108,400 spread within a single occupation title. That breadth reflects real market segmentation: experience level, programming language specialization, industry vertical, company stage, and geography all push wages along the distribution in measurable ways. A developer with seven years of experience at an enterprise software company in Minneapolis is drawing from a different labor market than one at a hyperscaler in the Seattle MSA, even if both carry the same SOC code. Tech versus non-tech salary at the same level documents this gap quantitatively.

The mean wage ($144,570) sits above the median ($133,080) but below the 75th percentile ($169,000). That arithmetic confirms the distribution is right-skewed — a meaningful portion of developers pull the mean upward without reaching the top quartile threshold. For negotiation purposes, the 75th percentile is the operative benchmark for a developer with strong experience and current skills. The 90th percentile ($211,450) in base salary corresponds roughly to principal or staff-level positions at well-paying employers, excluding equity. How to value RSU grants as compensation covers what the OEWS data omits.

Financial Managers

Financial managers carried a national median of $161,700 in May 2024, with a 10th percentile of $86,490. The 90th percentile is top-coded at $239,200 — the BLS disclosure threshold — meaning actual 90th-percentile earnings in this role are at minimum that figure and, in financial centers like New York or Chicago, materially higher. The top-coding is a data constraint, not a market constraint.

For finance professionals in the $150k–$300k range, the benchmarking question is specifically where within the 65th-to-90th-percentile band a given compensation package falls — and in which MSA. A financial manager at a regional bank earns against a fundamentally different distribution than one at a securities firm in Manhattan. Industry and geography interact multiplicatively here, not additively. Finance salary benchmarks from $150k to $500k breaks out industry-specific distributions where the OEWS cross-industry national figures are too broad to be actionable.

Marketing Managers

The marketing manager median of $161,030 in May 2024 masks one of the wider within-occupation distributions in the OEWS management category. The $79,130 spread from the 10th percentile ($81,900) to the median alone exceeds the entire interquartile range of many other professional occupations. Company size, budget authority, and industry vertical drive this variance more than any other factor. A marketing manager at a $15M revenue company and one at a Fortune 100 consumer brand both map to SOC 11-2021. Their market compensation does not overlap. The OEWS median is a useful anchor; it is not a reliable point estimate for either profile. Marketing director salary market rate data applies further segmentation to this occupation.

Finluxy Compensation Percentile: Worked Calculations

The Finluxy Compensation Percentile positions a stated base salary within the BLS OEWS wage distribution for the same occupation and metropolitan statistical area. The table below shows illustrative national-level calculations using May 2024 OEWS data. MSA-level percentile positioning will differ from national figures — the BLS OEWS metropolitan area profiles are the correct source for MSA-specific analysis.

Source: BLS OEWS May 2024. Finluxy Compensation Percentile figures are interpolated estimates based on the wage distribution between published BLS percentile breakpoints. National-level calculation only — MSA-level positioning requires checking the BLS OEWS metropolitan area occupation profiles at bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm. Equity grants, target bonus, and benefit value are excluded from this base salary comparison. For total compensation analysis, see total compensation versus base salary benchmarking.

The third example is the one that catches people: a marketing manager with ten years of experience earning $140,000 believes they’re paid respectably — and nationally, they’re below the median for their occupation. That’s what the Finluxy Compensation Percentile surfaces when applied systematically. The data has no opinion. It just places the number in its distribution. What percentile is $80k, $100k, and $120k income provides additional context on income positioning relative to the full U.S. workforce.

The Detail That Most Salary Coverage Overlooks

OEWS measures base salary and production bonuses. It does not capture the growing divergence between base-salary compression at most employers and total compensation acceleration at the top tier of large technology and financial firms. For software developers, the OEWS 90th percentile sits at $211,450. Levels.fyi — a self-reported secondary source with acknowledged selection bias toward senior roles at large companies — reports total compensation at the 90th percentile of the tech sector running well above $400,000 when equity is annualized. Neither figure is wrong. They measure different things. Every analyst and every professional who conflates these datasets is making a categorical error.

The second overlooked detail: the three-year rolling panel produces an estimate that by construction lags current market rates during periods of sustained wage growth. For software developers specifically, median base salary increased from $127,260 in May 2023 to $133,080 in May 2024 — a $5,820 year-over-year increase in the published median, even after the three-year smoothing effect. In a market where individual employers have moved faster, the OEWS figure understates true current rates by a range that varies by specialization and geography. Using it as a ceiling in negotiations, rather than a floor, is the most common and costly misapplication of this dataset.

The MSA Layer: National Percentiles As a Starting Point Only

Most compensation decisions are made within a metropolitan labor market, not a national one. An employer in Austin is drawing from the Austin MSA candidate pool. A developer benchmarking against national OEWS figures in a negotiation with an Austin employer is using the right dataset but the wrong geographic cut.

Source: BLS OEWS May 2024, SOC 15-1252. *MSA-level figures are approximate, drawn from BLS state and area data aggregations for May 2024; verify current values against BLS OEWS metropolitan area profiles at bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm. National median confirmed from BLS OOH (May 2024).

The San Jose premium of approximately 37 percent over the national median is not a cost-of-living artifact — it is a labor market premium driven by employer density and competition for specialized talent. A developer earning $169,000 (the national 75th percentile) in San Jose is approximately at the metro median, not near the top quartile. This is the gap that makes national-level benchmarking insufficient for any negotiation in a major tech hub. Remote worker salary and geographic pay differences extends this analysis to distributed roles, where the reference MSA has become contested between employer and employee location. For senior roles, VP and Director salary benchmarks by industry shows the MSA premium at higher compensation levels.

Connecting Base Salary to Total Compensation

OEWS figures are a base salary benchmark. They are not a total compensation benchmark. The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey — ECEC, June 2024 release — puts private industry employer benefit costs at $13.04 per hour worked, representing 29.7 percent of total employer compensation costs. For management, professional, and related occupations, that ratio is higher.

A financial manager with a $161,700 base salary carries total employer compensation cost that is substantially larger when health insurance, 401(k) match, and payroll taxes are included. For negotiation purposes, understanding what an employer actually spends per employee — versus what appears on a W-2 — changes the leverage calculation around base salary increases versus benefit enhancements. A $10,000 base increase and a 3-percentage-point improvement in 401(k) match have different tax treatments and different total cost implications for the employer.

For roles with material equity compensation — typically tech, finance, and senior leadership — base salary benchmarking using OEWS answers only part of the market-rate question. Product manager salary percentile by experience illustrates how equity grant value shifts total compensation positioning from the 65th to the 90th percentile nationally for roles at companies that pay competitively on equity. The consulting salary by firm tier analysis demonstrates a different structure, where target bonus is the primary variable above base salary rather than equity.

What This Means for $150k+ Households

For households at the $150k+ income level, the national median wage of $49,500 is irrelevant as a benchmark — you’re already at roughly the 90th percentile of all workers nationally when considering household income. The operative question is within-occupation positioning: are you in the top quartile for your role in your MSA, and is that reflected in your total compensation package?

The 75th-to-90th-percentile band within a specific occupation is where the negotiating leverage for $150k+ earners actually exists. Moving from the 65th to the 80th percentile in a professional role — typically $20,000 to $40,000 in base salary depending on the occupation — is achievable with a well-structured market data case, particularly for employees with significant tenure and demonstrable performance. Above the 90th percentile, OEWS top-coding limits data utility, and secondary sources become necessary despite their methodological weaknesses.

The floor-to-ceiling gap matters directionally for career trajectory as well. Income growth rate data by profession shows which occupations compound wage growth most steeply over a ten-year horizon — an important variable for professionals choosing between roles or industries. The real income gap from $100k to $150k shows why that particular threshold is more than linear — it involves structural shifts in occupation mix and employer type that the OEWS percentile data can help navigate, provided you’re using the occupation code, the MSA, and the percentile breakpoints correctly.