Political Scientists Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

The five rows are five different workers in the same occupation, from the 10th percentile ($74,750) to the 90th ($191,880). BLS suppresses cells that fail its reliability rules (n/p here) and caps the highest wages at $239,200+ a year or $115.00+ an hour; in this ladder that top code appears at the very top rows only.

Employment and concentration

The occupation employed 5,950 people in May 2024, 0.00% of every job BLS counted. District of Columbia is the largest employer at 3,250 jobs, and the leading three states between them hold 69.2% of the workforce. Concentration peaks in District of Columbia, whose location quotient of 118.81 says this work is 118.81 times as dense there as it is nationwide.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $117,130 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($191,880) is 2.6 times the 10th percentile ($74,750), a gap of $117,130 a year. The mean of $137,600 sitting near the median of $139,380 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

Virginia posts the highest median annual wage in the state table at $163,950, and District of Columbia the largest headcount. The full table, sorted by employment:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Political Scientists stands number 740 by employment and number 42 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations, the group median wage is $84,150 across 48 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 66% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.4% of the group's 1,446,780 jobs. In 4 of the 16 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $139,380, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV is the largest metro employer with 3,910 jobs, 65.7% of the national total. Two rankings follow across the 10 metros BLS publishes for this occupation: where the jobs are, then where the money is, with the pay ranking restricted to metros employing at least 500 people in this occupation to keep small samples out of the lead.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $153,650 a year, against $153,650 in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV. The lowest-paying large metro and the highest are both real markets for this occupation; the difference between them is the geography premium, or penalty, in cash terms.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

Budget arithmetic on the median: $11,615 a month before tax, $5,361 biweekly, $2,680 weekly. Moving from the 25th percentile ($103,030) to the 75th ($172,050) is worth $69,020 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. To turn any of these gross figures into spendable money, run them through the paycheck calculator; to weigh an offer against your current role, use the salary calculator; to test a raise against prices, the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $153,318 would sit between the median ($139,380) and the 75th percentile ($172,050), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $103,030, is $36,350 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations

Pay for the neighboring roles in the same BLS major group: Occupational Health and Safety Specialists, Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health, Chemists, Biological Technicians, Clinical and Counseling Psychologists, Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other. The full directory is on the Careers hub.