Model Makers, Metal and Plastic

The $63,340 midpoint sits $6.40 an hour above the $50,020 typical American job. That is a 27% premium, and premiums are rationed: whatever rations this one is the thing standing between you and Model Makers, Metal and Plastic.

With 2,610 employed nationally, Model Makers, Metal and Plastic is a small occupation. Small occupations are quiet: few postings, slow turnover, and a real chance that the person you would replace is not going anywhere.

Metal and plastic work suits people who want a measurable craft — the tolerance is either held or it is not — and who like being judged on something objective.

How long it takes to become one of the 2,610 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.

A quarter of the field earns under $47,360 and a quarter over $86,740: $39,380 between them, a ratio of 1.8x. Wide enough that the first offer you get tells you more about your prospects than the median does.

At $47,360, or $22.76 an hour, the bottom quarter of this work lands within $2,660 of the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — an unusually solid floor.

Avoid it if you would resent the shift pattern; much of this work runs nights because the machines do.

There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 2,610 people employed as Model Makers, Metal and Plastic; 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 ratio of 1.8x — $47,360 to $86,740 — is wide enough that specialising inside Model Makers, Metal and Plastic pays measurably. $63,340 is the middle of a range you can move within.

The middle half of this field earns between $47,360 and $86,740. That is $39,380 of range, with $63,340 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.

The 75th percentile is $86,740. Reaching it from the $63,340 midpoint is $23,400 a year; reaching it from the $47,360 that the bottom quarter of Model Makers, Metal and Plastic earn is $39,380.

The climb from $63,340 to $86,740 is $23,400, against $15,980 down to $47,360. Rather more of the range sits above the midpoint than below it, so the realistic upside in Model Makers, Metal and Plastic is larger than the realistic downside.

On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Model Makers, Metal and Plastic is $30.45 an hour. The quarters sit at $22.76 and $41.70, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.