Occupation / job
Production 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 $40,110 against $50,020, this pays $825 a month less than the typical American job. Below the midpoint but within reach of it: the spread and the floor below decide whether that description flatters Production Workers, All Other or not.
251,700 people do this work. An occupation this large has a published, well-known going rate — which means less scope to be underpaid and less scope to negotiate above it.
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.
How long it takes to become one of the 251,700 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
A quarter of Production Workers, All Other earn under $36,030 and a quarter over $49,010 — 1.4x, or $12,980 apart. Narrow spreads usually mean a pay schedule, which is stability bought at the price of upside.
The 25th percentile is $36,030 — $17.32 an hour, and $13,990 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 need a career shape; many of these roles are flat by design.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 251,700 figure counts people already working as Production 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
Top quarter to bottom quarter is 1.4x. In a band that narrow, $40,110 is a genuinely representative number for Production Workers, All Other and the main variable left is where you live.
Put in money rather than ratios: $36,030 at the 25th percentile, $40,110 at the midpoint, $49,010 at the 75th. $12,980 separates the quarter of Production Workers, All Other at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $49,010, the 75th percentile, is worth $8,900 a year more than the $40,110 midpoint and $12,980 more than the $36,030 a quarter of Production Workers, All Other settle for.
The upper half of the middle range — $40,110 to $49,010, or $8,900 — is far longer than the lower half at $4,080. In a shape like this an average would flatter Production Workers, All Other considerably, and would describe nobody.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $17.32 at the bottom quarter, $19.28 at the midpoint, $23.56 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
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Production Workers, All Other. The self-employed are excluded, so $40,110 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Production Workers, All Other, the hourly figure is $40,110 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