Only regular salaried employees are counted
India's Periodic Labour Force Survey asks regular wage and salaried employees what they were paid in the month before the interview. These are people with a regular job and a regular wage, in an office, a factory, a shop or a government post, and they are 23.6% of workers. Their average for 2025 was ₹22,699 a month: ₹24,217 for men and ₹18,353 for women.
The rest of the workforce is measured in other units. Self-employed men earned ₹17,914 on average over 30 days, and self-employed women ₹6,374. Casual labourers, hired by the day outside public works, earned ₹455 a day for men and ₹315 for women. Ranking a salary against every worker would need these groups on one footing, and the survey publishes no such figure. The calculator compares your salary with other salaried employees only, and says so.
A mean, with no percentiles
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation publishes the average and nothing else for this group: no median and no deciles. A mean is pulled up by the highest salaries, so standing at the mean is a different thing from standing in the middle. The calculator states your pay as a multiple of the mean and does not turn it into a rank.
The same survey gives a mean for every state and union territory, and the calculator shows yours when you choose it. The spread is wide: ₹42,060 in Ladakh, the highest, against ₹16,467 in Punjab, the lowest. The state is where the employee lives.
The survey's sampling design changed in January 2025. The ministry warns that the 2025 estimates may not be strictly comparable with earlier annual reports, so setting this year's mean against an older PLFS figure mixes two designs.
Gross salary, before provident fund
Offer letters usually quote cost to company, which includes the employer's provident fund contribution and often gratuity. The survey asks what the employee received as wage or salary, so the figure to enter is your gross annual salary from the salary slip, before your own provident fund contribution and tax.
| Item | Amount | How it is obtained |
|---|---|---|
| Gross salary for the year | ₹6,00,000 | From the salary slips, not the CTC |
| Monthly gross the calculator compares | ₹50,000 | 6,00,000 ÷ 12 |
The calculator sets ₹50,000 beside the all-India mean of ₹22,699 and, if you choose a state, beside that state's own mean.
No household comparison
India's last official poverty line, set by the Tendulkar method for 2011 to 2012, measures spending per person, and no official survey publishes household income after tax. With no current line or median to place a household against, the calculator shows the salary comparison only.