Occupation / job
Metal Workers and Plastic 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
At $45,950, Metal Workers and Plastic Workers, All Other lands just under the $50,020 national midpoint — $4,070 apart, inside the range a single promotion or a move between states closes.
15,900 people work as Metal Workers and Plastic 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.
These roles suit people who want a trade where the work is measurable to the thousandth and nobody can argue with the gauge.
We carry no verified training length for Metal Workers and Plastic Workers, All Other — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
A quarter of Metal Workers and Plastic Workers, All Other earn under $39,190 and a quarter over $54,100 — 1.4x, or $14,910 apart. Narrow spreads usually mean a pay schedule, which is stability bought at the price of upside.
The 25th percentile is $39,190 — $18.84 an hour, and $10,830 below the $50,020 typical American job. Entry-level in this field means that number, not the midpoint, so budget against it.
Avoid it if you would resent the shift pattern; much of this work runs nights because the machines do.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 15,900 figure counts people already working as Metal Workers and Plastic 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
$39,190 to $54,100 is a 1.4x range. Ranges this tight usually mean the employer set is homogeneous — the same kind of organisation paying the same kind of scale — so the lever you have is geography rather than employer.
The middle half of this field earns between $39,190 and $54,100. That is $14,910 of range, with $45,950 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Between $39,190 and $54,100 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $45,950. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $8,150; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $14,910.
From $45,950 it is $6,760 down to the bottom quarter and $8,150 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $18.84 at the bottom quarter, $22.09 at the midpoint, $26.00 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
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 Metal Workers and Plastic Workers, All Other for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $45,950 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Metal Workers and Plastic Workers, All Other, the hourly figure is $45,950 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