Food Processing 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 Food Processing Workers, All Other ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $35,360. 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 57,920 Food Processing Workers, All Other jobs in May 2024, which is 0.04% of all U.S. employment in the survey. Work is most concentrated in Iowa, where the location quotient is 5.23, meaning the occupation holds 5.23 times its national share of local jobs. California employs the most people outright, 7,560 of them, and the three largest state employers together account for 31.2% of the national total.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $17,180 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($47,470) is 1.6 times the 10th percentile ($30,290), a gap of $17,180 a year. The mean of $39,260 sitting above the median of $38,420 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

The state spread for Food Processing Workers, All Other runs from the $45,070 median in Kansas down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in California (7,560 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Food Processing Workers, All Other stands number 364 by employment and number 729 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 17% less than its group median, and it supplies 0.7% of the group's 8,743,430 jobs. In 27 of the 47 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $38,420, 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

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA is the largest metro employer with 2,350 jobs, 4.1% of the national total. Employment rank and pay rank are different lists: the second table re-sorts metros with at least 500 jobs in this occupation by mean pay, the floor keeping a handful of workers from posing as a market.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $32,030 a year, against $45,870 in Modesto, CA. That is the metro effect in one line: identical job title, materially different pay, decided mostly by which labor market the job sits in.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median annual wage of $38,420 works out to $3,202 a month before taxes, $1,478 per biweekly paycheck, and $739 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($35,360) to the 75th ($43,020) is worth $7,660 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. Run the median through the paycheck calculator for a take-home estimate in your state, compare an offer against your current pay with the salary calculator, and check whether a raise actually beats prices with the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $42,262 would sit between the median ($38,420) and the 75th percentile ($43,020), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $35,360, is $3,060 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

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Butchers and Meat Cutters, Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic, Chemical Equipment Operators and Tenders, Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant and System Operators, Sewing Machine Operators, Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.