Occupation / job
Media and Communication Workers, All Other
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 $73,620 against $50,020 means Media and Communication Workers, All Other pays $1,966 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.
19,590 people work as Media and Communication Workers, All Other. That is enough for a functioning national market and not enough for a functioning local one — in most metros this is a few employers rather than a field you can move around inside.
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 Media and Communication Workers, All Other — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
The gap between the bottom quarter of Media and Communication Workers, All Other at $49,790 and the top quarter at $103,820 is $54,030 — a ratio of 2.1x. Wide enough that the headline median describes almost nobody, and treating it as your number is a planning error.
The bottom quarter of Media and Communication Workers, All Other still clears $49,790 — $230 above the $50,020 typical job. A high floor is the most valuable and least advertised property an occupation can have.
Avoid it if you need a stable employer; this is one of the most restructured parts of the labour market.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 19,590 figure counts people already working as Media and Communication Workers, All Other, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
A 2.1x ratio says the label covers materially different work. Somewhere between $49,790 and $103,820, employer type, sub-speciality or credential is doing the sorting that the job title is not.
The middle half of this field earns between $49,790 and $103,820. That is $54,030 of range, with $73,620 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
The 75th percentile is $103,820. Reaching it from the $73,620 midpoint is $30,200 a year; reaching it from the $49,790 that the bottom quarter of Media and Communication Workers, All Other earn is $54,030.
From $73,620 it is $23,830 down to the bottom quarter and $30,200 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $35.39 at the midpoint for Media and Communication Workers, All Other, $23.93 at the 25th percentile and $49.91 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Media and Communication Workers, All Other for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $73,620 describes them.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $73,620 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