Occupation / job
Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic
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
Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic pays $46,170 where the typical job pays $50,020 — $1.85 an hour apart. That is close enough to average that the interesting numbers on this page are the percentiles, not the median.
At 33,190 employed, this is a mid-sized occupation. In a normal city that means several possible employers and a genuine market rate, which is the point at which knowing the numbers on this page starts to be worth money.
These production roles suit people who value a fixed site, a defined task and hours that end when the shift does, and who are consistent over long repetitive runs.
No verified preparation time is on file for Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic. 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
The quarters sit at $39,280 and $53,000, $1,143 a month apart at a ratio of 1.3x. Narrow enough that what you can expect is close to what everyone else gets.
A quarter of the field earns under $39,280 — $10,740 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 repetitive work over years would grind you down, which for many people it does.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 33,190 figure counts people already working as Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic, 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
At 1.3x between $39,280 and $53,000, this is a narrow distribution. $46,170 is a reliable number to plan around, which is worth something — but so is knowing that outperforming the field will not be paid for.
Put in money rather than ratios: $39,280 at the 25th percentile, $46,170 at the midpoint, $53,000 at the 75th. $13,720 separates the quarter of Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $53,000, the 75th percentile, is worth $6,830 a year more than the $46,170 midpoint and $13,720 more than the $39,280 a quarter of Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic settle for.
$6,890 down to $39,280, $6,830 up to $53,000: the midpoint of Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic is centred in its own middle half. That symmetry is why the median and the average would say much the same thing here, which is not true of most pages on this site.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $18.88 at the bottom quarter, $22.19 at the midpoint, $25.48 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 Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $46,170 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic, the hourly figure is $46,170 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