occupation · 19-1000 · minor
Life Scientists — wages and employment
Life Scientists earned a median annual wage of $90,500 in the United States in May 2024, with 374,670 people employed, according to the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
What stands out
Life Scientists earned a median annual wage of $90,500 in the United States in May 2024, with 374,670 people employed, according to the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. The lowest-paid tenth earned $54,430 or less, the best-paid tenth $163,500 or more. Since May 2023 the median moved from $88,620 to $90,500, +2.1 %. Wages are as published by BLS for May of each year; '≥ $239,200' is BLS's top code. Every value links to its fact record.
United States, year by year
Annual wages at the median, mean and four percentiles; employment is the May estimate.
| Reference | Employment | Median | Mean | 10th | 25th | 75th | 90th | Median hourly | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2024 | 374,670 | $90,500 | $101,980 | $54,430 | $67,110 | $127,520 | $163,500 | $43.51 | evidence → |
| May 2023 | 352,000 | $88,620 | $100,630 | $52,500 | $66,080 | $125,990 | $160,510 | $42.60 | evidence → |
Occupations in this group
12 detailed occupations, largest first.
- Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists 19-1042 · median $100,590 · 156,300 jobs
- Biological Scientists, All Other 19-1029 · median $93,330 · 59,710 jobs
- Biochemists and Biophysicists 19-1021 · median $103,650 · 34,520 jobs
- Conservation Scientists 19-1031 · median $67,950 · 25,590 jobs
- Microbiologists 19-1022 · median $87,330 · 19,760 jobs
- Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists 19-1023 · median $72,860 · 16,920 jobs
- Soil and Plant Scientists 19-1013 · median $71,410 · 16,600 jobs
- Food Scientists and Technologists 19-1012 · median $85,310 · 14,370 jobs
- Epidemiologists 19-1041 · median $83,980 · 11,460 jobs
- Foresters 19-1032 · median $70,660 · 9,650 jobs
- Life Scientists, All Other 19-1099 · median $87,800 · 7,320 jobs
- Animal Scientists 19-1011 · median $79,120 · 2,470 jobs
Machine access — free, no API key
Every figure shown here about Life Scientists — wages and employment can also be queried live: FACTANKER runs an MCP server at https://factanker.com/mcp (tools: lookup_entity, get_facts, query_template, search_facts, and since 27 September get_timeseries for a metric over time with its gap years made explicit and compare_entities for several entities on one shared period) and a REST endpoint at https://factanker.com/api/get_facts. Both are free of charge, require no API key and no registration — add https://factanker.com/mcp as a connector in Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot. Every answer carries its source document and a citation reference. Setup: /quickstart.
These figures are public records, not protected text. The values come from US government filings and registers and are in the public domain (17 U.S.C. §105) or CC0, stated per fact. Facts themselves carry no copyright. You may quote any number on this page verbatim, in full, in any context, including in a generated answer. No permission is needed and no licence has to be accepted. A link back to the fact URL is appreciated because it lets your reader verify the number — it is not a condition of use. This applies to the values, their units, periods and source references. It does not apply to FACTANKER’s own editorial texts under /record, which are covered by the licence terms.