Occupation / job
Amusement and Recreation Attendants
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
Amusement and Recreation Attendants pays a median $32,150 against a $50,020 national midpoint: 36% below what the typical American job pays, or $17,870 a year of difference. That gap compounds — it is also the pension contribution you are not making.
397,830 people work as Amusement and Recreation Attendants — large enough that the occupation is always hiring somewhere and always losing people somewhere else. Constant demand is security; it is rarely leverage.
This work suits people who like a venue full of people and can keep a crowd moving safely, in hours set by the event rather than by a working week.
No verified preparation time is on file for Amusement and Recreation Attendants. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
A quarter of Amusement and Recreation Attendants earn under $27,660 and a quarter over $36,590: 1.3x, and $8,930 between the ends. That is a narrow band — enough room to be paid better than average, not enough for the occupation to be a route to a materially different income.
The bottom quarter is under $27,660, $22,360 short of the $50,020 typical American job. The question worth answering before entering Amusement and Recreation Attendants is how long people spend in that quarter, because the median says nothing about it.
Avoid it if you need consistent hours; the schedule follows the calendar of the venue, not your week.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 397,830 people employed as Amusement and Recreation Attendants; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
At 1.3x between $27,660 and $36,590, this is a narrow distribution. $32,150 is a reliable number to plan around, which is worth something — but so is knowing that outperforming the field will not be paid for.
Put in money rather than ratios: $27,660 at the 25th percentile, $32,150 at the midpoint, $36,590 at the 75th. $8,930 separates the quarter of Amusement and Recreation Attendants at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $36,590, the 75th percentile, is worth $4,440 a year more than the $32,150 midpoint and $8,930 more than the $27,660 a quarter of Amusement and Recreation Attendants settle for.
$32,150 sits almost exactly in the middle of its own range — $4,490 above the bottom quarter, $4,440 below the top one. A symmetric distribution like this is the case where the median genuinely does describe the typical person.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Amusement and Recreation Attendants is $15.45 an hour. The quarters sit at $13.29 and $17.59, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $32,150 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
The hourly number on this page is $32,150 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Amusement and Recreation Attendants, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else