Occupation / job
Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, 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
Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic pays $47,180, effectively level with the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — $2,840 apart, which is inside the noise of a single year’s survey. Treat this as an average-paying occupation and decide it on everything else.
124,590 people are employed as Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic. At that size there is a real ladder and enough churn that experience can be sold to a competitor rather than only accumulated where you are.
This work suits people who like setting a machine up properly and then producing consistently, which is a different skill from making one good part.
How long it takes to become one of the 124,590 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.
Who should not do this
Between $39,420 and $57,800 there is $18,380, a ratio of 1.5x. Tight distributions are predictable, and predictable cuts both ways: little risk of being badly underpaid, little prospect of doing much better.
The 25th percentile is $39,420 — $18.95 an hour, and $10,600 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 the noise, the fume exposure and the standing are not acceptable long-run terms.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 124,590 people employed as Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, 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.
What the spread tells you
Top quarter to bottom quarter is 1.5x. In a band that narrow, $47,180 is a genuinely representative number for Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic and the main variable left is where you live.
Put in money rather than ratios: $39,420 at the 25th percentile, $47,180 at the midpoint, $57,800 at the 75th. $18,380 separates the quarter of Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $39,420 and $57,800 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $47,180. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $10,620; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $18,380.
The climb from $47,180 to $57,800 is $10,620, against $7,760 down to $39,420. Rather more of the range sits above the midpoint than below it, so the realistic upside in Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic is larger than the realistic downside.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $18.95 at the bottom quarter, $22.68 at the midpoint, $27.78 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
The $47,180 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.
The hourly number on this page is $47,180 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else