How we check facts
Every number on CareerFacts comes from a public data set published by the US Department of Labor. Each claim on a page is linked to the fact it rests on, and each fact is linked to its source.
Where the data comes from
- Pay and jobs: the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025, for the US, every state and metro areas. OEWS covers wage and salary workers. It does not include self-employed people.
- Job outlook and entry requirements: BLS Employment Projections 2025–35: projected employment, openings per year, and the typical education, experience and training needed to enter each occupation.
- How to become one and where people work: the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. We retell its facts in our own words.
- Duties, education surveys and related careers: the O*NET 31.0 Database.
How a page is made
- We load the latest data sets and match them by the federal Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code, so pay, outlook and duties describe the same occupation.
- A research step lists what the data shows and what it cannot tell you.
- An editing step writes the page in plain English. Every number carries a reference to its fact.
- A separate review step checks each claim against the data before the page is published.
Limits
BLS does not publish a starting salary. We show the 10th and 25th percentile wages, which describe lower-paid workers and often include people new to a job. Where BLS marks a wage only as $239,200 a year or more, we show it that way. Pay varies by employer, experience and location, so use these figures as a guide, not an offer. We do not cover tuition, school rankings or individual employers.
Credits
This site includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. CareerFacts has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. BLS data is in the public domain.