Occupation / job
Proofreaders and Copy Markers
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
$51,120 against a $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — $1,100 apart. Proofreaders and Copy Markers pays what the average job pays, so the decision has to be made on the work, the entry cost and the spread rather than on the wage.
With 4,580 employed nationally, Proofreaders and Copy Markers 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.
These office roles suit people who want steady indoor work with a defined task set, and who can sustain accuracy through volume rather than variety.
How long it takes to become one of the 4,580 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 earn below $41,170 and a quarter above $62,390: a 1.5x ratio, $21,220 between the ends. That is an ordinary working spread, which also means experience and location explain most of it and there is no shortcut through the middle.
A quarter of Proofreaders and Copy Markers earn less than $41,170, $8,850 off the $50,020 national midpoint — $19.79 an hour. The floor here is close enough to ordinary that the case against this work, if there is one, is not financial.
Avoid it if you need a role with clear progression; these posts are frequently the first ones consolidated away.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 4,580 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
At 1.5x between $41,170 and $62,390 this is a normally shaped occupation. $51,120 is what the middle of Proofreaders and Copy Markers earns after the years it takes to get there, which is not the same as what it offers you now.
The middle half of this field earns between $41,170 and $62,390. That is $21,220 of range, with $51,120 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Between $41,170 and $62,390 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $51,120. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $11,270; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $21,220.
$9,950 down to $41,170, $11,270 up to $62,390: the midpoint of Proofreaders and Copy Markers 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: $19.79 at the bottom quarter, $24.57 at the midpoint, $29.99 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 Proofreaders and Copy Markers. The self-employed are excluded, so $51,120 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $51,120 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else