Everyone thinks they deserve a higher salary for the work they do, and they could be right. Luckily, if you think you’re underpaid, there are many tools and resources out there to check.
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Here’s more information on the current state of salaries in the U.S., as well as nine tools to compare your salary with industry standards.
Also see the median salary of Americans your age in every state.
Salary Rates in the United States
According to ZipRecruiter, the average industry standard hourly pay in the U.S. is $18.56 an hour (between $17.31 at the 25th percentile to $20.91 at the 75th percentile), as of May 8, 2025. However, higher pay and career advancement can fluctuate depending on your education, skills, experience and location of employment.
You could be worth more than your employer is paying you. But to figure out whether you’re truly being underpaid compared with those doing similar work at your own and other companies, there are tools available to check on industry standard salaries.
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Compare Your Salary With Industry Standards
There are numerous workplace signs that will tell you if your underpaid. If your salary hasn’t changed in a long time (but your responsibilities have), if new hires are making more than you, if your company has been profitable but you haven’t seen any rewards — these are things to consider if you believe you are underpaid.
To make sure you’re getting fair compensation from your hard work, you can compare your pay with industry norms. The following nine tools can assist you in benchmarking your pay.
- Glassdoor: Glassdoor is known for its job listings, company reviews and salary data, which is provided anonymously and presented in ways that are useful to the job searcher or the wage curious.
- Levels.fyi: Levels.fyi provides verified salary submissions, so the leveling information it provides helps professionals navigate and improve their careers and what they should be paid.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): For those undaunted by spreadsheets, the BLS site has wage data and job characteristics for over 800 occupations and 400 industries at the national level. Plus, it provides stats for all 50 states and for 395 metropolitan areas (and 130 nonmetropolitan areas).
- Reddit: You shouldn’t take what you read in a Reddit post as gospel, but the communities are packed with actual pros who speak from experience about a job’s strengths and weaknesses and salary expectations.
- Professional associations: Organizations in your chosen work field are extremely helpful not just for industry resources and trends but for income ranges too. For example, if you’re a dental assistant unsure whether your current salary is fair, checking the American Dental Association’s Dental Workforce Wages and Job Count Dashboard will give you information on state-level earnings and job count trends for dental staff personnel.
- O*NET: This under-the-radar site gets top marks for being so user-friendly. It provides plenty of useful salary comparison information, but its greatest strength is its “My Next Move” search, which literally prompts “I want to be a…” to search career keywords, “I’ll know it when I see it…” to browse industry jobs, and “I’m not really sure…” to uncover your interests.
- Payscale: Payscale’s compensation services and software are best in class and offer users a search of over 45 million active salary profiles across more than 31,000 cities.
- U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM): If you’re a government worker, moving up the ladder might help grow your salary, as might a move to the private sector. Regardless, if you’re looking for a job in the federal government, the OPM site has 2025 salary tables for comparison and hiring information, work schedules, and pay and leave policies.
- Indeed: As reported by Money, Indeed claims to be the largest employment website in the world. Not only does it have loads of job listings, but its salary search will give you the information you’re seeking within a couple of clicks. Additionally, Indeed’s jobs reports and salary insights are invaluable resources to those searching for a new job or thinking about it.
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Sources
- ZipRecruiter, “Industry Standard Salary.”
- Money, “5 Best Job Search Sites of 2025.”
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Are You Underpaid? 9 Tools To Compare Your Salary With Industry Standards
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