Craft Artists Salary and Pay
How much do Craft Artists make?
Median pay for Craft Artists is $38,480 a year ($18.50); the mean is $45,340. The occupation employed 4,370 people in May 2024, and its middle band runs from $31,350 to $52,070.
Craft Artists salary data without the self-reported noise: BLS surveyed the employers, and this page prints the ladder, the states, and the metros exactly as the survey published them.
Updated November 5, 2026
Salary converter for this occupation
Conversions use 12 months, 26 biweekly periods, 52 weeks, and 2,080 hours. No level in this occupation's ladder reaches the BLS top code, so every figure the converter shows is a published estimate rather than a floor.
The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)
| Pay level | Annual wage | Hourly wage |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $22,620 | $10.88 |
| 25th percentile | $31,350 | $15.07 |
| Median (50th) | $38,480 | $18.50 |
| 75th percentile | $52,070 | $25.04 |
| 90th percentile | $65,850 | $31.66 |
A percentile marks a point in this occupation's pay distribution: the worker one quarter of the way up the Craft Artists ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $31,350. 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 4,370 people in May 2024, 0.00% of every job BLS counted. Michigan is the largest employer at 540 jobs, and the leading three states between them hold 26.8% of the workforce. Concentration peaks in Maine, whose location quotient of 7.93 says this work is 7.93 times as dense there as it is nationwide.
One in ten workers in this field earns $22,620 or less, and one in ten earns $65,850 or more, so the top-to-bottom ratio is 2.9 to 1 and the annual gap is $43,230. The mean ($45,340) versus median ($38,480) comparison shows a right-skewed ladder where senior and specialist roles lift the average in this occupation.
Pay by state
Every state with a publishable estimate is in this table, 33 of them, sorted by jobs. The pay leader by median is Maryland at $67,060; the jobs leader is Michigan:
| State | Employment | Jobs per 1,000 | Location quotient | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan | 540 | 0.1 | 4.36 | $31,790 | $26,640 |
| Texas | 340 | 0.0 | 0.88 | $48,940 | $52,000 |
| California | 290 | 0.0 | 0.58 | $86,090 | $59,980 |
| Colorado | 200 | 0.1 | 2.42 | $42,720 | $40,190 |
| Connecticut | 200 | 0.1 | 4.14 | $34,620 | $32,640 |
| Missouri | 160 | 0.1 | 1.97 | $55,700 | $58,750 |
| Ohio | 160 | 0.0 | 1.02 | $38,100 | $36,430 |
| Maine | 140 | 0.2 | 7.93 | $41,530 | $37,920 |
| New York | 130 | 0.0 | 0.46 | $57,900 | $48,580 |
| Oregon | 120 | 0.1 | 2.24 | $44,830 | $38,590 |
| Alabama | 100 | 0.0 | 1.70 | $35,870 | $35,090 |
| Iowa | 90 | 0.1 | 2.04 | $36,760 | $32,600 |
| Pennsylvania | 90 | 0.0 | 0.55 | $58,780 | $52,000 |
| South Carolina | 90 | 0.0 | 1.37 | $34,100 | $31,510 |
| Georgia | 70 | 0.0 | 0.53 | $53,160 | $34,040 |
| Washington | 70 | 0.0 | 0.66 | $48,880 | $43,380 |
| Kentucky | 50 | 0.0 | 0.90 | $42,720 | $38,890 |
| Minnesota | 50 | 0.0 | 0.58 | $33,670 | $31,980 |
| Wisconsin | 50 | 0.0 | 0.64 | $46,750 | $47,990 |
| Nebraska | 30 | 0.0 | 1.13 | $33,030 | $32,300 |
| Oklahoma | 30 | 0.0 | 0.64 | n/p | n/p |
| Arizona | n/p | n/p | n/p | $34,680 | $29,950 |
| Florida | n/p | n/p | n/p | $47,820 | $46,810 |
| Illinois | n/p | n/p | n/p | $44,580 | $31,960 |
| Indiana | n/p | n/p | n/p | $34,070 | $34,130 |
| Louisiana | n/p | n/p | n/p | $38,030 | $30,580 |
| Maryland | n/p | n/p | n/p | $71,750 | $67,060 |
| Massachusetts | n/p | n/p | n/p | $47,090 | $44,610 |
| Nevada | n/p | n/p | n/p | $45,540 | $36,400 |
| North Carolina | n/p | n/p | n/p | $51,490 | $46,540 |
| Tennessee | n/p | n/p | n/p | $54,620 | $37,570 |
| Utah | n/p | n/p | n/p | $27,060 | $20,030 |
| Virginia | n/p | n/p | n/p | $35,210 | $35,300 |
The occupation in context
Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Craft Artists stands number 767 by employment and number 727 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 42% less than its group median, and it supplies 0.2% of the group's 1,989,300 jobs. In 14 of the 32 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $38,480, 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
Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI is the largest metro employer with 310 jobs, 7.1% 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
| Metropolitan area | Employment | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 310 | $29,320 | $21,840 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 200 | $88,650 | $59,430 |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 160 | $46,960 | $37,740 |
| Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | 70 | $46,380 | $38,790 |
| Birmingham, AL | 50 | $38,670 | $41,930 |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 50 | $49,860 | $52,070 |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 50 | $83,470 | $79,410 |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 40 | $58,050 | $34,040 |
| Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN | 40 | $38,970 | $38,550 |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 40 | $91,590 | $81,940 |
What the median pay looks like as a budget
The median Craft Artists paycheck, gross, is $1,480 every two weeks on an annual $38,480, which is $3,207 a month and $740 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($31,350) to the 75th ($52,070) is worth $20,720 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 $42,328 would sit between the median ($38,480) and the 75th percentile ($52,070), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $31,350, is $7,130 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
Sibling occupations in Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations: Set and Exhibit Designers, Lighting Technicians, Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators, Designers, All Other, Artists and Related Workers, All Other, Choreographers. Medians there are computed identically, so the comparison is apples to apples; the full set lives on the Careers hub.
Frequently asked questions
How much do Craft Artists make?
The median annual wage is $38,480 and the mean is $45,340 in the BLS OEWS May 2024 estimates. The middle half of workers earn between $31,350 and $52,070 a year.
Which state pays Craft Artists the most?
By median annual wage, Maryland leads the state table at $67,060, based on n/p jobs in that state. By mean wage and by headcount the leaders can differ, so the state table on this page shows all three measures side by side.
How many Craft Artists are there in the United States?
BLS counted 4,370 wage and salary workers in this occupation in May 2024, 0.00% of all U.S. employment in the survey. The largest state employer is Michigan with 540 jobs.
What do the OEWS percentiles mean for Craft Artists?
They mark points in this occupation's pay distribution. One worker in ten earns $22,620 or less and one in ten earns $65,850 or more; the median, $38,480, is the wage of the worker exactly in the middle of the 4,370 counted jobs.