Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, and Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

Read the ladder vertically: each row is the wage of the Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, and Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic worker at that point in the distribution, so $51,380 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 70,110 Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, and Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic jobs in May 2024, which is 0.05% of all U.S. employment in the survey. Work is most concentrated in Indiana, where the location quotient is 3.17, meaning the occupation holds 3.17 times its national share of local jobs. California employs the most people outright, 7,800 of them, and the three largest state employers together account for 26.6% of the national total.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $26,570 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($61,550) is 1.8 times the 10th percentile ($34,980), a gap of $26,570 a year. The mean of $46,600 sitting above the median of $45,190 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 Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, and Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic runs from the $58,920 median in Missouri down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in California (7,800 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, and Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic stands number 329 by employment and number 638 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 0.8% of the group's 8,743,430 jobs. In 22 of the 48 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $45,190, 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 3,930 jobs, 5.6% 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, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $40,770 a year, against $57,960 in Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA. 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

As a household number, $45,190 a year is $3,766 a month gross, $1,738 every two weeks, $869 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($38,420) to the 75th ($51,380) is worth $12,960 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 $3,766 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 $49,709 would sit between the median ($45,190) and the 75th percentile ($51,380), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $38,420, is $6,770 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: Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders, Pressers, Textile, Garment, and Related Materials, Jewelers and Precious Stone and Metal Workers, Prepress Technicians and Workers, Rolling Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic, Upholsterers. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.