Occupation / job
Dishwashers
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 a $34,810 midpoint, Dishwashers sits 30% under the $50,020 national figure. The shortfall is $1,267 a month, which is roughly the size of a rent difference between metros — worth checking before the job is the thing you blame.
477,450 people do this work. An occupation this large has a published, well-known going rate — which means less scope to be underpaid and less scope to negotiate above it.
These roles are the entry point to the whole food sector and suit people who want work that starts this week and teaches the operation from the inside.
How long it takes to become one of the 477,450 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
$7,750 separates the bottom quarter at $29,690 from the top quarter at $37,440, a ratio of 1.3x. In a band that tight, moving up inside Dishwashers pays less than moving out of it would.
The bottom quarter is under $29,690, $20,330 short of the $50,020 typical American job. The question worth answering before entering Dishwashers is how long people spend in that quarter, because the median says nothing about it.
Avoid it if you need a path upward that does not depend entirely on one manager deciding to promote you.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 477,450 people employed as Dishwashers; 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
A 1.3x ratio from $29,690 to $37,440 makes $34,810 a dependable planning number. Dependable is the whole offer here — there is not much room above it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $29,690 at the 25th percentile, $34,810 at the midpoint, $37,440 at the 75th. $7,750 separates the quarter of Dishwashers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $29,690 and $37,440 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $34,810. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $2,630; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $7,750.
Getting from $29,690 to the $34,810 midpoint is $5,120; getting from there to $37,440 is only $2,630. The hard part of the range is the lower half, which is also the half a newcomer starts in.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $16.73 at the midpoint for Dishwashers, $14.27 at the 25th percentile and $18.00 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $34,810 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.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Dishwashers, the hourly figure is $34,810 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else