Average Salary by Age

Median Salary by Age Group

Median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers, Q1 2026, annualized at 52 weeks. The median is the worker in the middle: half of the group earns more, half earns less.

Two things the table quietly assumes. It counts full-time wage and salary workers only, so part-time workers and the self-employed are absent — which lifts the 65-and-over row, because a retiree still working full time is not a typical 65-year-old. And it is a snapshot of different people at different ages, not one career followed through time. The 45-to-54 row describes people who are 45 today; it is not a forecast of what today’s 30-year-olds will earn in fifteen years.

Are You Earning Above or Below Average for Your Age?

Start with your own age group, not the national median. The two disagree more than people expect: $59,280 is exactly the median if you are 30, and −20.6% against the median if you are 50. The same salary is average or behind depending only on when you were born.

The second comparison is the whole distribution. BLS publishes the earnings ladder for all full-time workers 16 and over — five points, annualized:

This ladder is why the page quotes medians and never a mean. From the median, it is $87,672 up to the 90th percentile but only $31,824 down to the 10th. Earnings stretch far in one direction and stop in the other, so an average would be dragged above the middle and describe almost nobody. BLS does not publish one for this series, and neither does this page.

The ladder is not broken out by age — BLS publishes it only for all workers together, so treat it as your standing among full-time earners generally, and the table above as your standing among your peers. If your salary lands short of both, the lever is usually the job rather than the year: see average salary by industry and average salary by job title, where the spread between the top and bottom dwarfs anything age explains.

How Salary Growth Changes by Decade

Read the medians as steps rather than levels and the shape of a career appears. Almost the entire climb is finished by 45:

The first step is the largest by a wide margin: +45.8% moving from the 16-to-24 group into 25-to-34, worth $18,616 a year. That is mostly the end of student and entry-level work rather than raises. The 20s-into-30s step is real career progress — +21.4%, or $12,688 — and it is the last big one.

Then it stops. Crossing into the peak group at 45 to 54 adds only +3.7%. After that the medians decline: −6.1% into 55-to-64 and −7.6% into 65 and over. In total, the 16-to-24 median grows +83.5% to reach its peak — and 92% of that climb is already banked by the 35-to-44 group.

The decline after 55 is the number most often misread. It does not mean pay is cut at 55. These are different people, not a cohort tracked over time: the best-paid workers are the ones most able to retire early, so each older group loses its top earners to retirement, and the median of who remains drops. Inflation matters too — the all-ages median rose +3.4% in the past year in current dollars, which is a raise only if prices rose by less.

Accelerating Your Salary in Your 30s vs Your 50s

The steps above argue for different tactics at different ages, because the same effort buys a different amount of ground.

In your 30s, when the median is still climbing

• Raise the base, not the bonus. The 25-to-34 median grows +21.4% over the following decade, and every future raise is a percentage of your base. A $5,000 increase at 32 is compounded by every raise after it; the same $5,000 as a one-off bonus is spent once.
• Negotiate at the offer, where the leverage is. A new employer is deciding a number from scratch; your current one is adjusting a number it already set. The salary negotiation guide covers what to say when the first figure lands.
• Check the industry before the title. Moving between industries moves pay further than moving up a level within one. The same work is priced differently by sector, and the industry table shows how far apart the ends sit.

In your 50s, when the median has flattened

• Tenure has stopped paying by itself. The step into 45 to 54 is +3.7% and the next one is negative. Waiting for the annual cycle to deliver a real increase is, at this point in the curve, waiting for something the data does not show. Gains come from a change in scope or role.
• Ask against evidence, not against tenure. “I have been here twelve years” is not an argument about value. How to ask for a raise works through building the case from what you deliver and what the role pays elsewhere.
• Count total compensation, not salary. A retirement match, catch-up contributions, and health coverage are worth more at 55 than at 30, and they are negotiable when the base has stalled. A smaller raise with a larger match can beat the reverse.
• Do not read the decline as your own. The 55-to-64 median is lower than the 45-to-54 median because of who is still working full time, not because individual salaries fall. Benchmark yourself against the ladder, not against the slope.

At any age, the number to argue over is the one the market pays for your role today. Whether the figure in front of you clears that bar is the question how much is a good salary works through, and the weekly to annual calculator converts a weekly BLS median into the annual figure a job listing quotes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by age, Q1 2026, not seasonally adjusted. Annual figures are weekly medians × 52 and are gross pay before tax. Percentiles cover all full-time workers 16 and over.