Hire Logix LabsSetting a salary range starts with a clear comparison: the work, the location, and the pay measure. Use a published wage distribution to frame the decision, then test a proposed range against your budget, current employees, and the position’s requirements.
This local salary benchmarking example uses dental hygienists in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, metropolitan area. The published figures are real; the employer, pay range, and budget decisions below are hypothetical. The same process can help a small hiring team turn compensation research into a range it can explain and approve.
Match the work and the market
Write down the main duties before searching by job title. For this example, the job involves preventive dental care, reviewing patient histories, and oral health education. Those duties fit Dental Hygienists, O*NET-SOC 29-1292.00, corresponding to SOC 29-1292 in the wage data.
Document the required credentials, clinical responsibilities, weekly hours, and worksite. A role that also carries substantial management duties may need a different comparison or a separate assessment of that added scope.
Choose the geography deliberately. A search for “Dallas dental hygienist salary” can return city, metro, state, or national figures. Here, the benchmark covers the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro, an 11-county area that includes Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, and Denton counties. It does not isolate one neighborhood or practice. Record why that broader market is a reasonable reference for the actual worksite.
Read the wage distribution with its date attached
O*NET’s local wage table reports these hourly benchmarks for dental hygienists in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS):
| Published benchmark | Hourly wage |
|---|---|
| 25th percentile | $42.91 |
| Median | $48.98 |
| 75th percentile | $55.96 |
Source period: May 2025. Figures checked October 5, 2026.
The median divides the estimated wage distribution in half. The 25th and 75th percentiles locate other points in that distribution. They do not assign wages to entry-level, experienced, or senior employees, and they are not automatically an employer’s minimum and maximum.
Keep the data vintage visible when sharing the figures. These are dated occupational estimates across employers and settings, not a live quote for this opening. They do not establish current vacancies, available candidates, or how quickly a practice will hire.
Compare the same compensation components
The BLS OEWS wage definition includes straight-time gross pay and some incentive payments, commissions, and production bonuses. It excludes overtime, on-call pay, shift differentials, nonproduction bonuses, and employer benefit costs. Treating OEWS as a pure base-pay measure would miss those distinctions.
Describe your package in separate parts: hourly base rate, any incentive formula, schedule-related additions, one-time payments, and benefits. If a practice pays a production bonus, document how that affects the comparison. Avoid presenting an uncertain bonus as guaranteed earnings or folding a sign-on payment into a recurring hourly rate.
Build a hypothetical employer range
Suppose a general dental practice is hiring a direct employee for routine clinical hygiene duties, without management responsibilities. It offers 32 paid hours per week, assumes 52 paid weeks for budgeting, and has no production bonus or shift premium in this illustration.
The practice chooses a $49 hourly midpoint, rounded from the published $48.98 median. It then tests a range approximately 10% below and above that midpoint: $49 × 0.90 = $44.10 and $49 × 1.10 = $53.90. For a simple working range, it rounds those bounds to $44–$54 per hour.
The 10% offsets and rounding are employer decisions rather than findings in the BLS data. This example is not a recommended range for every Dallas-area practice. The proposed bounds sit within the published 25th-to-75th-percentile interval, but that alone does not make them appropriate.
Before approval, define what would justify placement within the range: demonstrated skills relevant to the actual duties, ability to carry the required workload, and any additional responsibilities. Use consistent criteria rather than assigning a rate solely from years of experience. Distinguish the role’s full pay range from any narrower range approved for a new hire.
Test the budget and current employee pay
At 32 paid hours a week for 52 weeks, the illustration uses 1,664 paid hours annually. The $44–$54 range therefore produces $73,216–$89,856 in scheduled base wages; the $49 midpoint produces $81,536. Actual earnings depend on hours and payments received.
Add employer payroll costs, benefits, and any other planned compensation separately. Do not use a 2,080-hour annual conversion if the budget assumes a different paid schedule.
Compare the proposal with employees doing comparable work. If a new hire could earn more than someone carrying the same responsibilities, investigate the reason and the cost of any needed adjustments. If the full plan exceeds the budget, revisit the range, staffing design, or negotiable requirements before posting.
Set a review date and keep the reasoning
Save the occupation, geography, source period, selected midpoint, range width, assumptions, and approver together. Choose a specific review date, such as 30 days after posting, and an owner for that review. Also revisit the benchmark when duties change or a new source release becomes available.
At the review, examine applicant feedback, offer outcomes, and your own pay records. Change the range when the evidence supports it, and record why.
A salary range checklist to reuse
- Role: Do the occupation’s duties match the work, including any added responsibilities?
- Market: Is the geography appropriate, and is the source period clearly labeled?
- Measure: Are hourly or annual wages and compensation components comparable?
- Range: Can you explain the midpoint, width, and placement criteria?
- Budget: Have you used the planned paid hours and included other employer costs?
- Internal pay: Have you checked comparable employees and potential adjustment costs?
- Approval: Who owns the decision, exceptions, and next review date?
Bring the benchmark into your planning
Explore Salary Intelligence from Hire Logix Labs to review published annual occupational wage percentiles and separate certified H-1B LCA filing context in Excel. LCA records describe a specific filing population; they are not verified paychecks and are not needed for the dental hygienist example above.
Follow the workbook’s setup and refresh instructions, then check its status and source periods. Use the evidence alongside your role requirements, pay structure, and budget to make an explainable compensation decision.