Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders 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 Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $38,410. 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

BLS counted 57,310 Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders jobs in May 2024, which is 0.04% of all U.S. employment in the survey. Work is most concentrated in South Dakota, where the location quotient is 3.41, meaning the occupation holds 3.41 times its national share of local jobs. Ohio employs the most people outright, 4,700 of them, and the three largest state employers together account for 22.5% of the national total.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $29,870 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($64,660) is 1.9 times the 10th percentile ($34,790), a gap of $29,870 a year. The mean of $47,040 sitting above the median of $45,130 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

Montana posts the highest median annual wage in the state table at $58,060, and Ohio the largest headcount. The full table, sorted by employment:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders stands number 365 by employment and number 640 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Production Occupations, the group median wage is $46,020 across 105 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 2% less than its group median, and it supplies 0.7% of the group's 8,743,430 jobs. In 29 of the 46 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $45,130, 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 2,260 jobs, 3.9% of the national total. Below, the biggest employers come first; the pay table after it only counts metros with 500 or more jobs in the occupation, so its leader is a real market and not a statistical artifact.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $39,450 a year, against $56,410 in St. Louis, MO-IL. Anyone relocating for this work should price the destination metro's table row, not the national median, before signing anything.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders paycheck, gross, is $1,736 every two weeks on an annual $45,130, which is $3,761 a month and $868 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($38,410) to the 75th ($51,970) is worth $13,560 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 $49,643 would sit between the median ($45,130) and the 75th percentile ($51,970), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $38,410, is $6,720 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Production Occupations

Pay for the neighboring roles in the same BLS major group: Tire Builders, Textile Winding, Twisting, and Drawing Out Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal-Refining Furnace Operators and Tenders, Metal Workers and Plastic Workers, All Other, Food and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operators and Tenders, Lathe and Turning Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic. The full directory is on the Careers hub.