Compared with the local labor market
General Physical Science pay vs. the United States
Across all employers in the United States, the median wage for Physical Scientists, All Other — about 22,300 people — is $122,570. Department of Commerce pays a median base salary of $157,663 for this role, 29% above that figure — about the 72nd percentile of local pay for the occupation.
Where Department of Commerce sits in the local pay range
$67,000
$86,620
$122,570
$161,890
$195,190
Department of Commerce median · $157,663
The bar is the range of annual wages for Physical Scientists, All Other across every employer in the United States, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Department of Commerce’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
Computed over the 1,153 of 1,154 people in this role paid at least $25,000in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.
Median total compensation for this role at Department of Commerce is $157,631, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.