Occupation / job
Taxi Drivers
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
Taxi Drivers pays a median $42,100 against $50,020 across all occupations — $3.80 an hour of difference. At that distance the deciding variable is where you do it, not how long you have done it.
41,050 people are employed in this work. Big enough for a real market in every major metro, small enough that experience in Taxi Drivers is still a distinguishing thing to have.
This work suits people who want to be left alone to do the job and are judged on whether the load arrived on time and intact.
No verified preparation time is on file for Taxi Drivers. 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
A quarter earn below $37,790 and a quarter above $60,960: a 1.6x ratio, $23,170 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 the field earns under $37,790 — $12,230 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 the sedentary hours and the food available on the road would be a health problem for you.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 41,050 people employed as Taxi Drivers; 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
A 1.6x ratio is the most common shape in this data: some room to move, none of it quick. Read $42,100 as where you might be after years in Taxi Drivers, and $37,790 as where you would start.
In cash terms the middle half of Taxi Drivers runs $37,790 to $60,960 — $23,170 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $42,100.
Getting to $60,960, the 75th percentile, is worth $18,860 a year more than the $42,100 midpoint and $23,170 more than the $37,790 a quarter of Taxi Drivers settle for.
$4,310 below the midpoint, $18,860 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Taxi Drivers that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $18.16 at the bottom quarter, $20.24 at the midpoint, $29.30 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 $42,100 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.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Taxi Drivers, the hourly figure is $42,100 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