The Average Income Of A 25 Year-Old Might Make You Pause

When it comes to pay, age matters. Per DQYDJ, the annual average salary of a 25-year-old in the U.S. was $53,773 in 2024. On the other hand, BLS data shows that full-time workers aged 25 and over earned a median of $1,258 weekly, or approximately $59,000 annually, in Q1 2025 — highlighting how pay tends to rise steadily with age. At first glance, an annual paycheck of over $53,000 might seem reasonable for a 25-year-old just beginning to carve out a career. However, when you factor in student loan payments and other everyday essentials, that figure starts to feel a lot less financially comfortable.

Take student loans, for instance. The median borrower owed somewhere between $20,000 and $24,999 in 2023, according to the Pew Research Center. Rent has also given young workers less breathing room, with costs climbing more than 30% between 2019 and 2025, based on CPI data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Layer on the painful cost of groceries, and a young workers cash flow is stretched fairly thin.

Education impacts earning potential, and the numbers bear that out. Two education-related levers, in particular, determine earning power: the level of education completed and the type of degree earned. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, full-time workers aged 25 and over without a high school diploma earned a median of $743 per week, while high school graduates earned $953, in Q1 2025. Those with some college or an associate degree received a slightly higher pay of $1,096. A bachelor's degree, however, produced the most staggering leap, with median weekly earnings of $1,754. That said, experience or job changes (which are more common with younger generations) can also push income upward.

Degree type matters too. The class of 2025 is projected to earn an average initial salary of $78,731 for engineering majors and $76,251 for computer science majors, per the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). For arts and humanities majors, salaries roughly start at $50,000 per year, proof that some degrees are more likely to pay off than others.