Question: What’s the best way to find out about how much people make in specific jobs?
Answer:

We’re all curious about how much money people make for what they do. Even though our first inclination is to ask people directly, it’s an awkward personal inquiry unless you know someone really well. But don’t worry. There are many ways to find out about salaries without putting someone on the spot. There are literally thousands of websites where you can find salary information. Usually you’ll find salary level or average salary rather than exact numbers. Here are a few good ones.

On the internet search www.salary.com to get average salaries for just about any job. For example, put “meteorologist” in the search box. Enter your zip code and choose the salary data for “you” for “free”. This will give you the average salary range that people make in that job for people living in that zip code. You’ll find out that in zip code 33433, 50% of people working in that job make about $100,000 a year.

Another informative site is www.bls.gov providing average salaries for a wide variety of jobs. This site contains other fascinating official statistics on just about any career you can think of.

Also try reading free job postings on the internet or in magazines and newspapers that publish rates of pay. This will give you the most specific and current data for a job.

One word of caution: don’t feel pressured to register or give personal information about yourself to get this information on the internet. There are plenty of locations where you can get the data for free. Also, be careful about clicking on advertisements that pop up unexpectedly.