Occupation / job
Machine Feeders and Offbearers
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
Machine Feeders and Offbearers pays a median $41,220 against $50,020 across all occupations — $4.23 an hour of difference. At that distance the deciding variable is where you do it, not how long you have done it.
Employment stands at 42,330. Machine Feeders and Offbearers is common enough to be recruited for continuously and specific enough that the experience travels — the combination that makes changing employer a working pay rise.
Material moving suits people who want physical work they can start quickly, in a part of the labour market that hires continuously and across most of the country.
No verified preparation time is on file for Machine Feeders and Offbearers. 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 Machine Feeders and Offbearers earn under $36,420 and a quarter over $48,480: 1.3x, and $12,060 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.
A quarter of the field earns under $36,420 — $13,600 below the $50,020 the typical American job pays. That is the number to plan on for a first year, not the midpoint.
Avoid it if your back would not take years of it, because the work does not get lighter with seniority.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 42,330 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
A 1.3x ratio from $36,420 to $48,480 makes $41,220 a dependable planning number. Dependable is the whole offer here — there is not much room above it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $36,420 at the 25th percentile, $41,220 at the midpoint, $48,480 at the 75th. $12,060 separates the quarter of Machine Feeders and Offbearers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $48,480. Reaching it from the $41,220 midpoint is $7,260 a year; reaching it from the $36,420 that the bottom quarter of Machine Feeders and Offbearers earn is $12,060.
The climb from $41,220 to $48,480 is $7,260, against $4,800 down to $36,420. Rather more of the range sits above the midpoint than below it, so the realistic upside in Machine Feeders and Offbearers is larger than the realistic downside.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Machine Feeders and Offbearers is $19.81 an hour. The quarters sit at $17.50 and $23.30, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $41,220 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 $41,220 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