Desktop Publishers Salary and Pay
How much do Desktop Publishers make?
Desktop Publishers pay a median of $53,620 a year in the BLS May 2024 survey, with a mean of $60,250 across 4,000 counted jobs. Half of all workers in the occupation earn between $42,680 and $71,990.
What Desktop Publishers actually pay, from the federal wage survey: a $53,620 median, the full percentile ladder, every state's table, and the metros where the jobs and the money sit, on one page.
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 | $34,650 | $16.66 |
| 25th percentile | $42,680 | $20.52 |
| Median (50th) | $53,620 | $25.78 |
| 75th percentile | $71,990 | $34.61 |
| 90th percentile | $92,880 | $44.66 |
The five rows are five different workers in the same occupation, from the 10th percentile ($34,650) to the 90th ($92,880). BLS suppresses cells that fail its reliability rules (n/p here) and caps the highest wages at $239,200+ a year or $115.00+ an hour; in this ladder that top code appears at the very top rows only.
Employment and concentration
May 2024 employment stood at 4,000, or 0.00% of the U.S. total. New York leads the state table with 490 jobs; the top three states sum to 34.0% of the occupation. The concentration measure tells the more interesting story: New Hampshire posts a location quotient of 3.47, so a worker there is far more likely to meet a colleague in this field than the national pattern suggests.
Read the ladder as a career path in numbers: $42,680 at the 25th percentile, $53,620 at the middle, $71,990 at the 75th. The full 10-to-90 range runs $58,230, a ratio of 2.7 to 1. Where a specific job offer lands on that range says more about the role's level than the occupation's headline median does.
Pay by state
The state spread for Desktop Publishers runs from the $75,490 median in Colorado down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in New York (490 jobs). The complete table:
| State | Employment | Jobs per 1,000 | Location quotient | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 490 | 0.1 | 1.97 | $72,780 | $65,740 |
| California | 460 | 0.0 | 0.98 | $72,840 | $63,620 |
| Texas | 410 | 0.0 | 1.13 | $52,100 | $47,940 |
| Georgia | 270 | 0.1 | 2.10 | $58,500 | $45,000 |
| Florida | 230 | 0.0 | 0.91 | $54,700 | $51,850 |
| Minnesota | 230 | 0.1 | 3.00 | $64,910 | $61,020 |
| Illinois | 140 | 0.0 | 0.87 | $51,080 | $53,730 |
| Massachusetts | 140 | 0.0 | 1.46 | $61,010 | $54,590 |
| Pennsylvania | 130 | 0.0 | 0.85 | n/p | n/p |
| Wisconsin | 110 | 0.0 | 1.44 | n/p | n/p |
| Maryland | 90 | 0.0 | 1.30 | $61,820 | $56,590 |
| Arizona | 80 | 0.0 | 0.91 | $58,520 | $54,310 |
| Colorado | 80 | 0.0 | 1.04 | $73,810 | $75,490 |
| North Carolina | 80 | 0.0 | 0.60 | $53,100 | $46,380 |
| Tennessee | 80 | 0.0 | 0.98 | $47,120 | $42,940 |
| New Jersey | 70 | 0.0 | 0.63 | $65,150 | $65,650 |
| Virginia | 70 | 0.0 | 0.69 | n/p | n/p |
| Indiana | 60 | 0.0 | 0.72 | $49,230 | $51,520 |
| Louisiana | 60 | 0.0 | 1.25 | $53,810 | $55,110 |
| New Hampshire | 60 | 0.1 | 3.47 | n/p | n/p |
| Oregon | 60 | 0.0 | 1.16 | $64,410 | $61,020 |
| Ohio | 50 | 0.0 | 0.34 | $48,360 | $45,130 |
| Oklahoma | 50 | 0.0 | 1.06 | $40,950 | $43,790 |
| Maine | 40 | 0.1 | 2.24 | $47,170 | $48,660 |
| South Carolina | 40 | 0.0 | 0.75 | $58,390 | $50,660 |
| Kentucky | 30 | 0.0 | 0.65 | $40,320 | $33,780 |
| Missouri | 30 | 0.0 | 0.46 | $48,940 | $46,770 |
| Nebraska | 30 | 0.0 | 1.21 | $42,440 | $38,070 |
The occupation in context
Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Desktop Publishers stands number 771 by employment and number 481 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Office and Administrative Support Occupations, the group median wage is $47,850 across 54 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 12% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.0% of the group's 18,218,060 jobs. In 11 of the 24 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $53,620, 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
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ is the largest metro employer with 400 jobs, 10.0% of the national total. Two rankings follow across the 21 metros BLS publishes for this occupation: where the jobs are, then where the money is, with the pay ranking restricted to metros employing at least 500 people in this occupation to keep small samples out of the lead.
Largest metro employers
| Metropolitan area | Employment | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 400 | $78,460 | $70,500 |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 170 | $54,700 | $55,870 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 150 | $77,190 | $74,410 |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 120 | n/p | n/p |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 110 | n/p | n/p |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | 110 | $65,330 | $61,020 |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 90 | $65,680 | $65,330 |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 90 | $48,220 | $36,460 |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 70 | $73,190 | $61,210 |
| Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO | 60 | $73,780 | $75,490 |
What the median pay looks like as a budget
The median Desktop Publishers paycheck, gross, is $2,062 every two weeks on an annual $53,620, which is $4,468 a month and $1,031 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($42,680) to the 75th ($71,990) is worth $29,310 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 $58,982 would sit between the median ($53,620) and the 75th percentile ($71,990), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $42,680, is $10,940 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.
Related occupations in Office and Administrative Support Occupations
Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Customer Service Representatives, Office Clerks, General, Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive, First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers, Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks, Receptionists and Information Clerks. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.
Frequently asked questions
What is the median salary for Desktop Publishers?
$53,620 a year ($25.78), the middle wage among 4,000 counted workers in the BLS May 2024 estimates. The 75th percentile is $71,990 and the 90th is $92,880.
Where are Desktop Publishers jobs concentrated?
By headcount, New York leads with 490 jobs; by concentration, New Hampshire leads with a location quotient of 3.47, meaning the occupation is 3.47 times as dense there as nationally.
What do the top 10% of Desktop Publishers earn?
$92,880 a year or more. The gap between the 90th percentile and the median ($53,620) is the size of the senior and specialist premium in this occupation.
How does EveryCalc get Desktop Publishers pay data?
From the Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS bulk files for May 2024 (national, state, and metropolitan), downloaded November 5, 2026. Nothing on this page is self-reported by workers or scraped from job postings.