Food Preparation Workers

Food Preparation Workers pays $35,320 where the typical American job pays $50,020 — $14,700 a year short, or $7.06 an hour. That is a liveable wage in a cheap state and a difficult one in an expensive city, and nothing about the national figure tells you which you would be in.

At 893,600 workers, Food Preparation Workers is one of the largest occupations in the country. Jobs at this scale are the labour market’s floor — always hiring, rarely bidding, and first to absorb people leaving somewhere else.

Cooking suits people who work fast under time pressure in a hot, loud room, and who like that the shift ends when it ends.

We carry no verified training length for Food Preparation Workers — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.

A quarter of Food Preparation Workers earn under $29,950 and a quarter over $38,550: 1.3x, and $8,600 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 $29,950, $20,070 short of the $50,020 typical American job. The question worth answering before entering Food Preparation Workers is how long people spend in that quarter, because the median says nothing about it.

Avoid it if you need predictable hours, or a workplace that is not hot, loud and physically punishing.

There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 893,600 people employed as Food Preparation Workers; 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.

A 1.3x ratio from $29,950 to $38,550 makes $35,320 a dependable planning number. Dependable is the whole offer here — there is not much room above it.

In cash terms the middle half of Food Preparation Workers runs $29,950 to $38,550 — $8,600 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $35,320.

Between $29,950 and $38,550 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $35,320. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $3,230; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $8,600.

The midpoint sits high inside its own range: $5,370 above the $29,950 bottom quarter but only $3,230 below the $38,550 top quarter. Most of the distance in Food Preparation Workers is spent climbing out of the bottom, and once you are past the middle there is not much further to go.

Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $16.98 at the midpoint for Food Preparation Workers, $14.39 at the 25th percentile and $18.53 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.