Occupation / job
Correspondence Clerks
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
At $46,800, Correspondence Clerks lands just under the $50,020 national midpoint — $3,220 apart, inside the range a single promotion or a move between states closes.
With 4,290 employed nationally, Correspondence Clerks is a small occupation. Small occupations are quiet: few postings, slow turnover, and a real chance that the person you would replace is not going anywhere.
Information and records work suits people who can be accurate and pleasant simultaneously, often while the person in front of them is neither.
How long it takes to become one of the 4,290 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.
Who should not do this
Between $38,610 and $56,090 there is $17,480, a ratio of 1.5x. Tight distributions are predictable, and predictable cuts both ways: little risk of being badly underpaid, little prospect of doing much better.
The 25th percentile is $38,610 — $18.56 an hour, and $11,410 below the $50,020 typical American job. Entry-level in this field means that number, not the midpoint, so budget against it.
Avoid it if being the first point of contact for other people’s problems all day would wear you down.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 4,290 people employed as Correspondence Clerks; 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
The quarters are $38,610 and $56,090, a ratio of 1.5x. In a distribution this narrow, the biggest single lever on your pay in Correspondence Clerks is the cost of living where you do it.
In cash terms the middle half of Correspondence Clerks runs $38,610 to $56,090 — $17,480 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $46,800.
The 75th percentile is $56,090. Reaching it from the $46,800 midpoint is $9,290 a year; reaching it from the $38,610 that the bottom quarter of Correspondence Clerks earn is $17,480.
$8,190 down to $38,610, $9,290 up to $56,090: the midpoint of Correspondence Clerks is centred in its own middle half. That symmetry is why the median and the average would say much the same thing here, which is not true of most pages on this site.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $22.50 at the midpoint for Correspondence Clerks, $18.56 at the 25th percentile and $26.96 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $46,800 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.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $46,800 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else