Data Guide

What This Site Measures

Wages Atlas covers 38 OECD economies. For each economy the site presents PPP-adjusted average annual wages, long-run wage changes drawn from the reported historical series, and category price level indices benchmarked to the United States = 100. Country pages and the comparison page put wages and prices side by side so readers can make wage and price comparisons across economies without mixing the two measures into a single score.

Wage Data

The average annual wage is the economy-wide average wage reported by the OECD. Values are expressed in PPP-adjusted USD, because purchasing power parity adjustment removes most of the price-level difference between economies and makes wage values comparable across countries. It is an average: it does not represent any individual's actual income.

The wage series in this dataset starts in 2000 and runs through 2025, with the starting observation varying by economy. Pages default to the 2025 common year: tables and rankings use each economy's latest reported wage. Where an economy has no 2025 observation, the site falls back to the most recent available year and marks that year in brackets next to the value, so a fallback is never mistaken for a 2025 figure.

Because the average covers the whole workforce, it can be pulled upward or downward by the shape of a country's wage distribution. Two economies with the same average wage can have very different typical wages underneath it. Treat the figure as a comparable economy-wide reference point, not as a description of what any particular worker, occupation or region earns.

Price Level Data

Price levels use the United States = 100 benchmark: a value of 100 means the category's price level equals the U.S. reference for the same year.

• Overall — the aggregate consumption price level across the categories measured.
• Food — food and non-alcoholic beverages purchased for home consumption.
• Clothing — garments and footwear.
• Housing — housing-related consumption, including rents and housing services.
• Health — medical products and health services.
• Transport — vehicle purchase, operation and passenger transport services.
• Recreation — recreation, sport and culture goods and services.
• Restaurants — restaurants, cafés and accommodation services.

A value above 100 means the category is more expensive than the U.S. reference; a value below 100 means it is less expensive. A price level index is a relative index, not a specific product price and not a household budget: it says how a category compares with the same category in the United States, not what any item costs.

Read the overall index and the category indices together, not as substitutes. An economy can sit close to the benchmark overall while one or two categories sit far above or below it, and the overall number alone will not reveal that spread. That is why every view on this site keeps categories individually visible.

How Comparisons Work

Country lists and tables show the observation year next to each wage value, and economies without a 2025 observation carry a bracketed fallback year. The comparison page reads each country's own latest wage year rather than forcing both onto a year one of them does not report. Wage data and price data can come from different years — wages default to 2025 while prices cover 2022–2024 — and every value keeps its own label, so figures from different years are never presented as if they shared one year. The site also does not combine wages and prices into an unverified "quality of life score"; the two measures stay separate and individually labelled.

Change Calculations

1-Year Change, 5-Year Change and 10-Year Change compare the latest reported wage with the observation exactly 1, 5 or 10 years earlier: the percentage change is (latest wage ÷ earlier wage − 1) × 100. Percentage Change values are always signed — a negative value means the wage fell over the window.

Each change window is computed only when both endpoints exist as reported observations. If the earlier endpoint is missing — for example a series that starts too late for a 10-year window — the change cell shows a dash rather than a shortened calculation, so a "5-year" figure always spans five real years.

The Growth Index rebases each country's series by setting the first year of the selected range to 100; later values show cumulative growth relative to that base year. The Historical Peak is the highest reported wage value in the full available series for that economy, displayed together with the year it occurred.

Missing Data

Missing values are displayed as –. The site does not fill gaps with 0, does not interpolate between observations, and does not automatically substitute another year's value. Where an earlier year is shown because a newer observation does not exist, the year is explicitly labelled next to the value.

Data Sources

Wages Atlas uses official OECD statistics for its wage and price-level comparisons. Source years remain visible throughout the site, and missing observations are not estimated or silently replaced.

Average Annual Wages

• Data provider: OECD
• Dataset: Average Annual Wages
• Official source: OECD Average Annual Wages
• Coverage: Available historical observations through 2025; the starting year varies by economy.
• Update frequency: Updated when the OECD publishes new observations or revises historical data.
• Data used: Economy, observation year and PPP-adjusted average annual wage.
• Last reviewed: August 2026

Average annual wages are presented in comparable, PPP-adjusted U.S. dollars. The figures represent average wages across the economy and should not be interpreted as median wages, household income or individual earnings.

Price Level Indices

• Data provider: OECD
• Dataset: Price Level Indices
• Official source: OECD Price Level Indices
• Coverage: 2022–2024 for the price categories currently displayed on this site.
• Update frequency: Updated in line with new OECD releases and revisions.
• Data used: Economy, observation year, overall price level and available consumer price categories.
• Last reviewed: August 2026

Price levels are displayed relative to a United States benchmark of 100. A value above 100 indicates a higher comparative price level, while a value below 100 indicates a lower level for the selected category.

Data Review

Source data is checked before being added to the site. When the OECD revises an observation, the displayed value may also change during a later review. Missing values remain marked as –; they are not zero-filled, interpolated or replaced with an unlabelled value from another year.

Update Schedule

Source data is checked monthly for new OECD observations and revisions. The "Data reviewed" label shown on pages and in the footer states when the underlying data was last checked. When the OECD updates a dataset used by this site, the updated figures are reflected here after review. Revised historical observations replace the previously displayed values, so the site always shows the reviewed series rather than stacking outdated figures.

A review pass may change a value you remember from an earlier visit. That is expected behaviour rather than an error: it means the source published a revision, and the site now reports the reviewed figure with the same observation year attached.

Limitations

• An average wage is not a median wage; a few very high or very low values can move it.
• PPP adjustment cannot reflect every household's consumption structure; it uses an average basket.
• A national price index cannot represent a specific city or region inside an economy.
• Taxes, housing arrangements, exchange rates and personal spending patterns all affect what the data means for an individual.
• The data on this site should not be used on its own for employment, relocation or investment decisions.

These limitations do not make the data unusable — they define what questions it answers well. For comparing how economies stand relative to each other, with every value traced to a named source and year, the measures above are the right tool. For questions about a specific person, city or household, they are only a starting point.