How the numbers are made

US pay

US figures are taken directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS, May 2025). "Typical person" is the median; "lower earner" is the 10th percentile and "higher earner" the 90th. For jobs published only as hourly wages, yearly pay is hourly × 2,080 hours. The survey caps yearly pay at $239,200; values above the cap are shown as "or more".

Japan pay

Japan figures come from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Basic Survey on Wage Structure (2025), by occupation. Yearly pay is "monthly contractual cash earnings × 12 + annual bonus and special pay", the ministry's own standard approximation. Figures are averages for full-time regular workers at firms with 10 or more employees and exclude public employees (teachers, police, firefighters) and company executives. Percentiles are not published by occupation, so Japan pages say "average" and show differences by age, company size and sex instead.

The "100 people" picture

The five published percentiles (10, 25, 50, 75, 90) are interpolated on a log scale into 100 values. The tails are extrapolated with the neighbouring slope and clamped. It shows the shape of the distribution, not 100 real people.

State figures

Only the 50 states and DC are included. States with fewer than 500 workers in the job, or a relative standard error above 10% on the mean wage, are marked with ※ and left out of rankings.

Currency

Dollars and yen are converted at a fixed $1 = ¥150 for display only. The underlying figures are in each country's currency, and price levels are not adjusted.

Famous people

Salaries set by law, official asset disclosures, company filings, league or association figures and press estimates are labelled separately. Asset disclosures are self-reported at a point in time; land is counted at its assessed value, not market value.

The written text

Job descriptions, why pay differs, how to get in, a typical day and fun facts are written after researching government, professional-association and major media pages in the job's own country; the pages used are listed at the bottom of each job page.