Artists and Related Workers, All Other Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

A percentile marks a point in this occupation's pay distribution: the worker one quarter of the way up the Artists and Related Workers, All Other ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $44,760. BLS top-codes very high wages ($239,200+ a year, $115.00+ an hour) and marks estimates it cannot publish as n/p.

Employment and concentration

The occupation employed 7,370 people in May 2024, 0.00% of every job BLS counted. California is the largest employer at 580 jobs, and the leading three states between them hold 22.7% of the workforce. Concentration peaks in Maryland, whose location quotient of 4.21 says this work is 4.21 times as dense there as it is nationwide.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $99,460 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($133,180) is 3.9 times the 10th percentile ($33,720), a gap of $99,460 a year. The mean of $79,490 sitting above the median of $72,760 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

Maryland posts the highest median annual wage in the state table at $121,890, and California the largest headcount. The full table, sorted by employment:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Artists and Related Workers, All Other stands number 723 by employment and number 268 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations, the group median wage is $66,220 across 36 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 10% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.4% of the group's 1,989,300 jobs. In 8 of the 28 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $72,760, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV is the largest metro employer with 1,540 jobs, 20.9% of the national total. The first table ranks metros by employment; the second ranks them by mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs in the occupation, because a three-person metro can top a pay table by accident.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $118,650 a year, against $118,650 in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV. A gap that size between two metro labor markets is why the same occupation title can fund two very different budgets in two different cities.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median Artists and Related Workers, All Other paycheck, gross, is $2,798 every two weeks on an annual $72,760, which is $6,063 a month and $1,399 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($44,760) to the 75th ($112,420) is worth $67,660 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. Gross is a starting point, not a budget: the paycheck calculator nets it down by state, an offer comparison lives in the salary calculator, and the raise vs inflation calculator separates a real raise from a nominal one.

To place a real offer: a salary of $80,036 would sit between the median ($72,760) and the 75th percentile ($112,420), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $44,760, is $28,000 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations

Pay for the neighboring roles in the same BLS major group: Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners, Music Directors and Composers, Set and Exhibit Designers, Lighting Technicians, Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators, Designers, All Other. The full directory is on the Careers hub.