How to Know If a Job’s Salary Is Fair

The direct answer

A fair salary is one you can locate inside a published wage distribution and defend: at or above the median for your occupation and metro, with the benefits counted at what they would cost you to replace. Below the 25th percentile, the discount needs a name — equity, training, flexibility — or it is just a discount. The good news: this used to require guesswork, and now it requires about fifteen minutes, because the federal government publishes the distribution, and a growing stack of state laws forces employers to reveal their ranges.

Step 1: Find your percentile in the official data

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program publishes wage estimates for roughly 830 occupations — nationally, by state, and by metro area. For each occupation you get five numbers: the 10th, 25th, 50th (median), 75th, and 90th percentile wages. That is the actual spread of what people doing the job are paid, and BLS publishes a guide for using it to compare your own pay.

• Find your occupation code (search the OEWS tables for your job title — use the occupation, not the industry slang).
• Use your metro, not the national table. The same title swings 30–50% between metros. One caution from BLS: do not average percentiles across areas — use the published percentile for your area.
• Locate your pay. At the median, half of the local people doing your job earn more than you. At the 75th, three quarters do less well.

For context while you benchmark: median weekly earnings for all full-time wage and salary workers were $1,251 in the second quarter of 2026 — about $65,000 a year. That is the middle of the entire US full-time labor market, every occupation mixed together. Where your occupation’s distribution sits relative to that line is the start of a fair-price judgment.

Step 2: Triangulate with market sources

Government data is authoritative but lags — it is collected slowly and published annually. Current market sources fill the gap, each with a bias you should discount for:

• Levels.fyi — strong for tech and the only source that breaks out stock grants properly; skews toward large employers and self-reporters at brand-name companies.
• Payscale and Glassdoor — broad coverage across industries; entries age and the profile of who reports is not the profile of who works.
• Job postings themselves — the freshest signal. Roughly 18 states plus Washington, D.C. now have pay transparency laws requiring salary ranges in postings (Colorado, California, Washington, New York, Illinois, Hawaii, Maryland, and more). Search your title in those states even if you do not live in one — remote postings reveal national bands.

The rule: one government source plus two market sources. If all three agree within about 10%, you have found the market. If they disagree wildly, the title is doing different jobs in different industries — narrow by industry and seniority until they converge.

Step 3: Count total compensation, not base

Base salary is the headline; it is rarely the story. Value every piece at replacement cost — what it would cost you to buy it yourself:

• Bonus: target percentage, but discount it by the company’s actual payment history. A target that paid 40% of promise last year is worth 40%.
• Health insurance: this is the big hidden number. KFF’s 2025 employer survey put the average family premium at nearly $27,000 a year, with employers paying about $20,000 of it; even single coverage averages about $9,300. You never see that money, but you would feel it buying coverage alone.
• Retirement match: a 4% match on an $80,000 salary is $3,200 of instant, guaranteed return.
• Paid time off: 15 days at a $38 hourly rate is about $4,600 of paid year a contractor has to fund themselves.
• Equity: value public-company stock at market; value private-company options at a fraction of face — they are a lottery ticket with a strike price. If you cannot sell it in 30 days, do not count it as salary.

Run an $80,000 offer through this: $80,000 base + $6,400 target bonus + $3,200 match + roughly $7,900–$20,100 of health premium (single vs. family) — the real package is somewhere near $97,000 to $110,000, plus whatever you decide the equity is worth. Two offers $8,000 apart in base can invert completely once the package is counted.

Step 4: The W2-versus-1099 conversion — the one most people get wrong

If you are weighing a salaried job against contracting or heavy gig work, comparing the hourly rates straight across is the classic error. The Kronos audience lives on this boundary, so here is the honest math. A $75/hr contract is not “the same as” a $75/hr salaried role, because the employer was quietly paying costs you are about to inherit:

• Payroll taxes: employees pay 7.65% and employers pay another 7.65% on top. Self-employed workers pay both halves — the IRS’ 15.3% self-employment tax.
• Health coverage: yours to buy — budget at least the ~$9,300 average single premium, more for a family.
• Unpaid time: vacations, sick days, and every hour between contracts. A contractor billing 46 weeks a year has 6 unpaid weeks.
• No match, no benefits desk: retirement, disability, the software subscriptions, the accountant.

The working rule: a 1099 rate needs to be roughly 1.25 to 1.4 times the W2 hourly equivalent to land you in the same place. $80,000 ÷ 2,080 hours is $38.46/hr salaried — so the contract version of that job starts around $48–$54/hr, before you price risk and income variance. (For the flip side of this math — what gig platforms actually pay per day — see our companion guide: Can You Make $700 a Day With Gig Work?)

And if you do go variable, the failure mode is not the rate — it is the bookkeeping. Our guide to managing irregular income covers the floor-budget system, and the gig-economy 1099 tax guide covers what to set aside.

Step 5: Negotiate with the distribution, not the adjective

Once you know your percentile, negotiation stops being about courage and becomes about citation:

• Anchor to a percentile: “The metro median for this occupation is $X and I am asking for the 60th–75th because [scarcity, record, scope].” That is checkable, and recruiters know it.
• Frame in total compensation: if the base is capped, move the bonus, the match, a sign-on, a review at 6 months, or an extra week of PTO. Each has a price the employer sees at replacement cost too.
• Use the posting against the offer: if a range was posted and the offer lands under the posted midpoint with average-or-better qualifications, that is a documented discrepancy, not a feeling.
• Beware the 24-hour explode: real offers survive a week. Pressure that punishes verification is pricing in what you would find.

Red flags and green lights

• Red flag: “Competitive salary.” In 2026, in a covered state, an absent range is a choice. In an uncovered state it is an invitation to benchmark harder.
• Red flag: the range widens at offer stage — posted $70–$90k, offered $68k “with review.” Reviews rarely close posted-range gaps.
• Red flag: equity that cannot be explained — no strike price, no vesting schedule, no last valuation. If they cannot price it, you cannot either.
• Green light: they show the band first, unprompted — correlates with disciplined compensation practice internally.
• Green light: below-median pay, above-median everything else — real equity, real training, real flexibility. Fair is an exchange you can write down, not a number.

The five-minute version

1. BLS OEWS: your occupation × your metro → your percentile.
2. Two market sources (Levels.fyi / Payscale / Glassdoor) → confirm the band; check posted ranges in transparency states.
3. Count the package at replacement cost — bonus, match, health, PTO, sellable equity.
4. Convert any 1099 hourly offer at 1.25–1.4× before comparing it to a salary.
5. Judge: median-and-up with honest benefits = fair. Under the 25th with no named reason = the market has better news for you elsewhere.

Frequently asked questions