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WageScope · Free pay guides
What does your job pay?
Look up any job. See low, middle and high pay near you. Free, no sign-up.
$69k
$80k
$98k
Selected
$112k
$137k
10th
10 of 100 people make less
25th
25 of 100 make less
Middle
Half make more, half less
75th
25 of 100 make more
90th
10 of 100 make more
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How to use WageScope
MLWritten by the MeritLog team ·
Start with a role and add a place if it helps. Check each source on its own. Then pick a real job before you work on your résumé.
01 · What WageScope is for
Start with one wage question
WageScope explains official pay data for 830 detailed occupations and 583 unique public state or local places. Start with a job title. Add a place only when the place changes the question. The page then keeps the role code, area code, wage field, and source date in view.
A national occupation page answers what the role pays across the United States. A local page answers what the same role pays in one BLS area. An area page shows the all-occupations wage and a bounded role mix. A two-place page compares one role and one wage field across two exact areas.
The goal is a clear answer, not a wall of numbers. Each detail page opens with the median, source period, and job count. Charts add the wage spread or place gap. Tables keep exact values in reach. Plain notes say what the source leaves out. One job action comes after the wage answer.
02 · Step one
Choose the occupation that matches the work
BLS gives each detailed occupation a six-digit SOC code. The code matters because some titles sound alike. A cashier is not a stocker. A software developer is not every computer role. WageScope keeps the official title and code together so a broad search label does not blur two wage rows.
The occupation library has 830 detailed rows in this release. Search by the words a worker or employer would use. Open a result and read the official title before you use the number. If the title does not fit the work, go back and choose a closer row.
A role page can show nearby occupations in the same major group. Those links are a source-backed way to keep looking. They are not skill matches or career advice. Similar pay does not mean similar work. Open each page and check the code, job count, wage spread, and place pattern on its own.
03 · Step two
Read the middle and the full wage range
Median means the middle of a wage spread. Half of the wage values used in the estimate fall below it. Half fall above it. Mean adds the wage values and splits the total by the number of jobs behind the estimate. The two marks can differ because a wage spread is not always even.
Percentiles add more of the range. The 10th and 25th points show the lower side. The 75th and 90th points show the upper side. A percentile is a rank point, not a career stage. The 10th point is not a promised start wage. The 90th point is not a wage that comes after a set time.
A posted job range can sit below, across, or above the BLS marks. Keep the post tied to its employer and date. Keep the BLS range tied to the whole occupation and release. A gap can lead to a useful question, but it does not prove that the post or the survey is wrong.
04 · Step three
Add a place without mixing map types
The BLS source has 584 area rows. WageScope shows 583 distinct places. We leave out one Guam nonmetro row because it repeats the Guam territory row. You can browse states, metro areas, and nonmetro areas. Each type covers a different kind of place.
A local role page uses the exact occupation and area row. It can add the matching state row when the link is clear. It also shows the U.S. row. Each row keeps its own name and values. WageScope does not fill a missing local row with a state wage or copy a nearby metro.
WageScope ranks a state with states, a metro with metros, and a nonmetro area with nonmetro areas. The national row stays a broad bench mark. Pay, job count, jobs per 1,000, and location quotient answer different place questions. None is a place score.
05 · Compare places
Compare one job in two places
A fair place pair keeps the occupation, wage field, and BLS release the same. WageScope compares annual with annual or hourly with hourly. It shows the full wage ladder when both rows have the fields. Reverse city order leads to one shared page, so the same pair does not become two search pages.
Where BEA has a row for the exact place, we can show local prices from 2024. The BEA file we use has 438 exact BLS state or metro matches. The overall price index sets the U.S. level at 100. You can also see separate values for housing, goods, utilities, and other services.
To compare pay after local prices, we divide pay by the overall price index divided by 100. We show the math. This is only a broad price view. It does not give take-home pay or a home budget. It leaves out taxes, benefits, household size, debt, travel to work, and your own needs.
06 · Survey care
Check data gaps and how precise the survey is
BLS uses a survey and models to make OEWS estimates. It can leave a field blank. A blank does not mean zero. Some high wage fields are top coded. A top code means the value is at least the shown bound. WageScope keeps that state instead of making a more exact number.
RSE means relative standard error. It is a survey precision flag for the field beside it. Employment RSE stays with the job count. Mean-wage RSE stays with the mean. WageScope does not move either mark to the median or each percentile. It does not turn RSE into a chance that one worker's pay is right.
The safest reading is narrow. Use the source date. Use the exact field. Keep the map type and role code. Read job count apart from open posts. Read the price index apart from the wage source. If the source cannot answer a point, let the page say so.
07 · From data to action
Choose a real listing before you tailor
WageScope ends with one clear job action. The role page can show eligible employer-title matches from MeritLog's public catalog. The match is strict on purpose. It can miss a useful post, but it should not fill a wage page with a different role. The full job search remains the recovery path.
Open a listing and read its own level, place, pay, and needs. Compare posted pay with the BLS spread only as context. The post may use a broad title or a narrow title. It may ask for work that the official SOC label does not name. The listing remains the source for that employer's request.
Tailor from work facts you can back up. A wage number is not a skill. A BLS job count is not an achievement. A price proxy is not a work result. MeritLog can help shape confirmed evidence for the chosen job. The public WageScope visit does not create the draft.
08 · Source clock
Why the date stays beside the answer
May 2025 OEWS estimates is the wage source used across WageScope. The reference period is May 2025. BLS published the release on May 15, 2026. A current job post may have a newer date, but that does not make the government wage row newer. Each source keeps its own clock.
We check the BLS tables each week. If a full new release is out, we stop calling our older data the latest. We check the new files and review their use before release. We do not change an old date to look fresh. Each new source must pass the same data and page checks.
BEA price-level data has a separate clock. The current WageScope price source is for 2024. It was published on February 19, 2026. WageScope shows the wage and price periods together when both are used. It never says the two sources describe the same month.
09 · Jobs stay separate
What a current listing can and cannot add
A job card shows a firm, title, place, source, and check date. We keep only close matches between the employer's title and the BLS job type. A wage page may have no matching cards. We leave out unclear matches, even when this means a useful post does not appear.
A listing may show posted pay. That range belongs to one employer post. It never enters the BLS median, mean, percentile, employment count, or price-level proxy. A list of posts also does not become a hiring score. The BLS row and the public catalog answer different questions on different clocks.
Each wage page must explain its source data well enough to stand on its own. We do not count job-post text toward that review. Posts can change or close at any time. If no jobs match, or job search is down, you can still read the wage data. We say what happened and do not fill the list with sample jobs.
10 · Public and read only
What WageScope does with a visit
This page uses public government facts and job details cleared for public use. It does not read your Career Memory, private jobs, pasted job text, private pay, or saved résumé. Opening a role or place does not add a fact to your private record. It does not start an AI task.
This page does not build a private profile from your search, role, place, pay, or job cards. Public analytics tools may get the page URL while they are on. These tools are GA4, Ahrefs, and Meta. Use Your Privacy Choices or Global Privacy Control to turn that off. You can use WageScope without signing in.
To work on a résumé, choose a job and enter the private MeritLog flow. You check the work facts used in each draft. A BLS wage, area rank, job count, or price estimate cannot become a claim about your work. You can still use the public page when the private tools are closed.
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