Food Servers, Nonrestaurant Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

Read the ladder vertically: each row is the wage of the Food Servers, Nonrestaurant worker at that point in the distribution, so $37,550 at the 75th percentile means three quarters of the occupation earns less. Figures BLS cannot publish appear as n/p, and its top code prints as $239,200+.

Employment and concentration

BLS counted 271,780 Food Servers, Nonrestaurant jobs in May 2024, which is 0.18% of all U.S. employment in the survey. Work is most concentrated in North Dakota, where the location quotient is 2.29, meaning the occupation holds 2.29 times its national share of local jobs. California employs the most people outright, 29,570 of them, and the three largest state employers together account for 23.4% of the national total.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $18,180 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($44,770) is 1.7 times the 10th percentile ($26,590), a gap of $18,180 a year. The mean of $35,030 sitting above the median of $34,460 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

Colorado posts the highest median annual wage in the state table at $38,180, and California the largest headcount. The full table, sorted by employment:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Food Servers, Nonrestaurant stands number 131 by employment and number 803 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations, the group median wage is $34,460 across 17 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 0% more than its group median, and it supplies 2.0% of the group's 13,613,500 jobs. In 18 of the 51 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $34,460, 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 16,140 jobs, 5.9% 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, New Orleans-Metairie, LA posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $26,250 a year, against $49,970 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. 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

As a household number, $34,460 a year is $2,872 a month gross, $1,325 every two weeks, $663 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($29,800) to the 75th ($37,550) is worth $7,750 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. The next step from a gross figure is a net one: run the $2,872 monthly figure through the paycheck calculator applies your state's taxes, the salary calculator compares two offers in any unit, and the raise vs inflation calculator tells you whether a nominal raise is a real one.

To place a real offer: a salary of $37,906 would sit between the median ($34,460) and the 75th percentile ($37,550), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $29,800, is $4,660 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations

Pay for the neighboring roles in the same BLS major group: Cooks, Fast Food, Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers, Dishwashers, Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria, Hosts and Hostesses, Restaurant, Lounge, and Coffee Shop, Chefs and Head Cooks. The full directory is on the Careers hub.