India vs US fresher pay: official data, nominal and PPP
LiveRec is a verified job platform for seekers and employers in the US and India. This page puts official US wage percentiles next to India's official average pay for regular salaried workers, so you can see the size of the gap and how much of it disappears once prices are taken into account. It is not a like-for-like fresher comparison, and the limits are listed below.
Headline findings
- In 2025, India's official survey (PLFS) put average monthly earnings from regular wage or salaried work at ₹24,217 for men and ₹18,353 for women, or ₹2,90,604 and ₹2,20,236 a year.
- At the official 2025 exchange rate that is about $3,334 a year for men and $2,527 for women.
- Adjusted for purchasing power with the World Bank's household-consumption PPP factor, the same pay is about $14,648 PPP for men and $11,101 PPP for women, roughly 4.4 times the nominal dollar figure.
- In the US, the lowest-paid tenth of all workers earned $31,200 or less in May 2025 and the median worker earned $50,980. In Software Developers, the lowest-paid tenth earned $82,460 or less.
- The comparison is nominal unless marked PPP. A nominal dollar comparison overstates how much more a US pay packet buys.
India: official average pay, 2025
| Measure (regular wage or salaried workers, PLFS) | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| Average monthly earnings, 2025 | ₹24,217 | ₹18,353 |
| Average monthly earnings, 2024 | ₹22,891 | ₹17,126 |
| Yearly equivalent, 2025 (monthly x 12) | ₹2,90,604 | ₹2,20,236 |
| Yearly equivalent in US dollars, official exchange rate | $3,334 | $2,527 |
| Yearly equivalent in PPP dollars | $14,648 PPP | $11,101 PPP |
MoSPI reports that earnings of regular wage or salaried men rose about 5.8% from 2024 to 2025 and women's about 7.2%, in nominal terms. The survey changed its design from January 2025, so MoSPI warns against comparing 2025 with earlier estimates without care.
United States: wage percentiles, May 2025
BLS does not publish an entry-level wage. The 10th and 25th percentiles show what lower-paid workers in an occupation earn and are the nearest official stand-in; new graduates are often, but not always, in that range.
| Occupation (BLS OEWS) | 10th percentile | 25th percentile | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| All occupations | $31,200 | $37,590 | $50,980 |
| Customer Service Representatives | $31,750 | $36,870 | $44,770 |
| Accountants and Auditors | $56,020 | $67,020 | $83,680 |
| Computer Systems Analysts | $67,340 | $82,860 | $105,850 |
| Software Developers | $82,460 | $105,210 | $135,980 |
| Registered Nurses | $68,940 | $80,330 | $97,550 |
Reading the two together
- US Software Developers at the 10th percentile earn 32.6 times the yearly dollar value of the average Indian regular salaried woman and 24.7 times the average man at the official exchange rate. That ratio shrinks to 7.4 and 5.6 on a PPP basis.
- The two sides are different populations: India's figure averages all regular salaried workers of every age and education, while the US figures are for one occupation at a low percentile. The official data we could read does not break India's pay out by education or experience.
- Offers also differ in what they include. See CTC vs in-hand salary for India and total compensation for the US.
Method
- US: BLS OEWS May 2025 national estimates, annual wage 10th percentile, 25th percentile and median, for the occupation codes shown. The file covers wage and salary jobs and excludes the self-employed.
- India: the PLFS Annual Report 2025 press note (January to December 2025). Yearly equivalents multiply the monthly average by 12; this ignores any bonus paid outside the survey month.
- Currency: the official exchange rate is the World Bank's 2025 period average of 87.16 rupees per US dollar. The PPP factor is the World Bank's 2025 household final consumption expenditure factor of 19.84 rupees per international dollar. PPP dollars are not spendable dollars.
- The calculations are simple multiplication and division of the published figures and can be repeated by anyone.
What we could not use
PLFS publishes pay by education level in the full annual report tables, which we could not retrieve automatically from MoSPI's site, so this page has no graduate-only India figure. A fresher-specific India figure would need those tables or the unit-level data on the microdata portal.
Sources
- BLS OEWS tables, May 2025, accessed 1 November 2026.
- MoSPI press note, PLFS Annual Report 2025, accessed 1 November 2026.
- World Bank, official exchange rate, India, accessed 1 November 2026.
- World Bank, household consumption PPP factor, India, accessed 1 November 2026.
Related pages
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