The higher or lower game for salaries

Every pair is two job ads. The first shows its real salary. The second says “Salary: Competitive”. Click the job you think pays more.

Either way, the second ad’s salary shows. That ad moves into first place, next to the next job. The third miss ends the round. A day’s round has ten pairs.

Good to know

• Nothing is timed.
• A Budget cuts round asks which job pays less. The points work as usual.
• Pay freeze makes each right pick a flat 190, and the run bonus is off.

The longer your run, the more each right pick pays.

The best possible score is 1,900, for ten right in a row.

Daily and solo rounds

Today’s ten pairs are the same for every player and change at midnight in your time zone. To practice, press the Play yesterday’s round button. You get yesterday’s ten pairs again, and that round sets no best score.

Half the ads skip the number

In June 2026, 49% of US job postings on one of the largest job boards showed any pay at all. The rest printed no number, and some put a phrase like competitive salary in its place.

Across 21.5 million postings, ads that said competitive salary had a median about $5,000 to $14,000 higher than standard postings.

Why the other job surprises you

People judge other jobs’ pay by their own. German workers who’d earn about 10% more by switching employer expected about 1% more. So a job that pays far more than yours often looks smaller than it is, and that’s most of what makes this game hard.

Titles that say nothing about the pay

Logistician, actuary and switchboard operator are in the game alongside CEO and bartender. A title can hide the pay. Architect sounds like the better-paid job, but an elevator installer’s median is $109,910, against $99,280 for an architect.

Real medians from May 2025

Every figure is the US median yearly pay for that job in May 2025. Half the people doing it earned more, and half earned less. The figures come from a national survey of employers, which leaves self-employed workers out.

Most yearly figures are the hourly rate times 2,080 hours. For jobs paid by the year, such as teachers, pilots and flight attendants, the survey gives the yearly figure directly.

Why no pair is a coin toss

In every pair, the higher pay is at least 10% above the lower. Survey figures carry a margin of error, so a smaller gap could be noise.

How the week gets harder

Each run starts with jobs far apart in pay and ends with jobs close together. Pairs also get closer toward Friday. The gap is measured in percent, so $40,000 against $44,000 is as close as $400,000 against $440,000.