About AffordMap

You search "nurse salary Dallas." You get a number. But what does that number actually buy you in Dallas? After taxes? After rent? Compared to the same job in Austin, or Tampa, or staying put? That's the question nobody answers well. That's what we built this for.

Where the numbers come from

Everything on AffordMap starts with official U.S. government data. Not surveys, not self-reported guesses, not job posting scrapers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys employers directly and publishes wage percentiles for 800+ occupations across every state and major metro area. We download those files, load them into a database, and build every page from them.

For rent, we use HUD Fair Market Rents. For cost of living, the BLS Regional Price Parities. For company-level pay, the Department of Labor's H-1B disclosure filings. All of it is public domain under federal law. We cite BLS as the source on every page because that's the right thing to do and also because they ask nicely.

What we add

Raw BLS data is free and public, but it lives in enormous CSV files on a government website built in 2003. Nobody browses it casually.

We take that data and do three things the government doesn't: we estimate your take-home pay using actual federal and state tax brackets, we compare that take-home to local rent to show whether you can actually afford to live there, and we adjust for local prices so you can compare what a salary is worth across cities. Those calculations are ours. They're estimates, not gospel. Our disclaimer page lays out exactly what's government data and what we derived.

Why this and not Glassdoor

Glassdoor, PayScale, and Salary.com rely on people volunteering what they earn. Those samples skew toward tech workers, people who are unhappy with their pay, and anyone who felt like filling out a form that day. The sample sizes for a dental hygienist in Boise? Tiny. The BLS, by contrast, surveys 1.2 million employer establishments every year. The data is 12-18 months old by the time it's published. Occupation categories are broad, but it's the most reliable compensation data that exists for the United States.

Also, we don't make you create an account to see a number.

How we keep the lights on

Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you click through and take action, AffordMap may receive compensation at no cost to you. This never influences the salary data, cost-of-living figures, or calculations shown — all data comes from U.S. government sources. See our full disclosure.

We run ads too. When traffic is high enough, premium ad networks like Mediavine pay well for salary content because recruiters and education companies want to reach people researching careers. The data you see is never shaped by who's advertising. It can't be. It's pulled straight from government CSVs.

Fine print

We are not the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We are not the Department of Labor. We are not affiliated with any government agency. Source data is published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and other federal agencies. AffordMap is not affiliated with or endorsed by any government agency. Per BLS policy, "BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov."

Nothing here is financial advice, tax advice, or career counseling. It's data with context. If you're making a big life decision, like moving, negotiating, or switching careers, talk to a real human professional who knows your situation.

Get in touch

Found a wrong number? Have a data question? Want to partner? Email hello@affordmap.com. We read everything.