Occupation / job
Editors
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
A midpoint of $77,920 against $50,020 means Editors pays $2,325 a month more than the typical American job. At that distance the entry requirement is the real subject, because it is what the premium is buying.
National employment is 91,690. At that scale hiring is continuous, the market rate is well established, and your leverage comes from being credibly willing to go somewhere else.
Media and communication work suits people who can write or edit to a deadline that will not move, for an audience that owes them no attention.
We carry no verified training length for Editors — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
The quarters sit at $57,300 and $106,100 — 1.9x, or $4,066 a month apart. At that width the occupation contains genuinely different jobs, and which one you are being offered matters more than the title does.
The bottom quarter of Editors earns $57,300 or more — $7,280 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Three quarters of the field is well paid and the last quarter is still paid better than most of the country.
Avoid it if you need a stable employer; this is one of the most restructured parts of the labour market.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 91,690 people employed as Editors; 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
From $57,300 to $106,100 at a ratio of 1.9x is wide enough that two people with the same job title have materially different jobs. $77,920 sits in the middle of that and describes neither of them especially well.
Put in money rather than ratios: $57,300 at the 25th percentile, $77,920 at the midpoint, $106,100 at the 75th. $48,800 separates the quarter of Editors at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $57,300 and $106,100 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $77,920. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $28,180; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $48,800.
$28,180 separates $77,920 from the $106,100 top quarter, while only $20,620 separates it from $57,300. The range leans upward, which means the middle of Editors has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Editors is $37.46 an hour. The quarters sit at $27.54 and $51.00, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Editors. The self-employed are excluded, so $77,920 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Editors, the hourly figure is $77,920 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