About IN Reality

What Salary Do You Need to Earn to Live the Way You Want? Which Jobs Pay What You Need?

What will it cost you to live the way you want? Most of us don’t think about this when we think about our future and rarely in terms of matching up what we “want to do” with the way we want to live.

IN Reality will help you build a monthly budget based on your lifestyle choices and tied to actual prices in Indiana. It’s a reality check for all of us who need to make some decisions about career paths and to understand what those careers will pay – for real.

Intended for use by young adults, IN Reality is good for anyone considering a career or a career change. There are three easy ways to use the tool:

• Start by building a budget around your lifestyle choices with Reality Check
• Or, plug in a salary number in Future Salary
• Or, plug in an occupation using Occupation Direct

Reality Check

How much do you need to earn to match your desired lifestyle?

Get started

Future Salary

Already know how much you want to earn? Type it in here and see which occupations match.

Go

Occupation Direct

Choose the kind of job you want and then find out how much it will pay.

View details

IN Reality is a database-driven, mobile-ready website that will work on any size device from smartphones to tablets to laptops and desktops.

Prices used to build the budget are specific to metropolitan areas in Indiana, based on the Cost of Living Index (COLI) from the Council for Community and Economic Research; Zillow.com home prices; Consumer Reports and Edmunds.com (for true-cost-to-own monthly auto costs); city public transit web sites; Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for apartment rent; college costs/debt from the National Center for Education Statistics and FinAid.org; and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The price data from the COLI will be updated quarterly, all other data will be updated annually.

Occupation data is based on the Indiana Department of Workforce Development Occupation Employment Estimates (OES) and O*Net, a federal compendium of all things specific to occupations. Once you target a salary, the career search lets you see the types of jobs close to that salary and provides detailed information on the education, experience and skills necessary for that occupation.

Additional Resources

Ready to explore more? These great resources are available!

• Indiana Career Explorer
• Learn More Indiana
• INTraining – Get the Skills You Need to Succeed
• WIN Career Readiness Courseware (online courseware)
• Hoosier Hot 50 Fastest Growing High-Wage Jobs

For more information on IN Reality, please email lmi@dwd.in.gov or ibrctech@iu.edu.