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.
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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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
