Occupation / job
Tellers
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 $43,030 against $50,020, this pays $582 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 Tellers or not.
This is a large occupation: 329,480 people work as Tellers. Large occupations hire continuously and replace continuously, and the pay reflects both facts.
These roles suit people who want steady, structured work with money, and who find genuine satisfaction in a set of books that balance.
How long it takes to become one of the 329,480 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 Tellers earn under $37,040 and a quarter over $46,580: 1.3x, and $9,540 between the ends. That is a narrow band — enough room to be paid better than average, not enough for the occupation to be a route to a materially different income.
A quarter of the field earns under $37,040 — $12,980 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 you want a role software is not steadily absorbing; this one is.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 329,480 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
A 1.3x ratio from $37,040 to $46,580 makes $43,030 a dependable planning number. Dependable is the whole offer here — there is not much room above it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $37,040 at the 25th percentile, $43,030 at the midpoint, $46,580 at the 75th. $9,540 separates the quarter of Tellers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $46,580. Reaching it from the $43,030 midpoint is $3,550 a year; reaching it from the $37,040 that the bottom quarter of Tellers earn is $9,540.
Getting from $37,040 to the $43,030 midpoint is $5,990; getting from there to $46,580 is only $3,550. The hard part of the range is the lower half, which is also the half a newcomer starts in.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $17.80 at the bottom quarter, $20.68 at the midpoint, $22.39 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 $43,030 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 $43,030 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Tellers, 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