Receptionists and Information Clerks

Receptionists and Information Clerks pays $38,010 where the typical American job pays $50,020 — $12,010 a year short, or $5.77 an hour. That is a liveable wage in a cheap state and a difficult one in an expensive city, and nothing about the national figure tells you which you would be in.

At 910,180 workers, Receptionists and Information Clerks is one of the largest occupations in the country. Jobs at this scale are the labour market’s floor — always hiring, rarely bidding, and first to absorb people leaving somewhere else.

Information and records work suits people who can be accurate and pleasant simultaneously, often while the person in front of them is neither.

How long it takes to become one of the 910,180 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.

$11,170 separates the bottom quarter at $33,960 from the top quarter at $45,130, a ratio of 1.3x. In a band that tight, moving up inside Receptionists and Information Clerks pays less than moving out of it would.

The bottom quarter of Receptionists and Information Clerks earns under $33,960 — $16,060 below the $50,020 national midpoint, or $16.32 an hour. A floor that low means the occupation cannot be judged on its median alone; a quarter of the people in it are somewhere else entirely.

Avoid it if absorbing other people’s frustration all day would wear you down; that is the substance of the role.

There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 910,180 people employed as Receptionists and Information Clerks; 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.

At 1.3x between $33,960 and $45,130, this is a narrow distribution. $38,010 is a reliable number to plan around, which is worth something — but so is knowing that outperforming the field will not be paid for.

In cash terms the middle half of Receptionists and Information Clerks runs $33,960 to $45,130 — $11,170 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $38,010.

Getting to $45,130, the 75th percentile, is worth $7,120 a year more than the $38,010 midpoint and $11,170 more than the $33,960 a quarter of Receptionists and Information Clerks settle for.

The distance from the midpoint up to $45,130 is $7,120 — well over the $4,050 down to $33,960. Distributions leaning this way mean the median understates what the upper half of Receptionists and Information Clerks earns, and half the field is in that upper half.

Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $18.27 at the midpoint for Receptionists and Information Clerks, $16.32 at the 25th percentile and $21.69 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.