Helpers--Carpenters 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 Helpers--Carpenters ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $35,870. 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

The occupation employed 24,610 people in May 2024, 0.02% of every job BLS counted. Florida is the largest employer at 2,480 jobs, and the leading three states between them hold 27.8% of the workforce. Concentration peaks in South Dakota, whose location quotient of 5.86 says this work is 5.86 times as dense there as it is nationwide.

One in ten workers in this field earns $31,540 or less, and one in ten earns $52,380 or more, so the top-to-bottom ratio is 1.7 to 1 and the annual gap is $20,840. The mean ($42,080) versus median ($41,600) comparison shows a right-skewed ladder where senior and specialist roles lift the average in this occupation.

Pay by state

Sorted by employment, the table below puts Florida first at 2,480 jobs; sorted by median pay instead, New Hampshire would lead at $49,990. Both orderings are printed in one table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Helpers--Carpenters stands number 516 by employment and number 676 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Construction and Extraction Occupations, the group median wage is $54,660 across 60 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 24% less than its group median, and it supplies 0.4% of the group's 6,361,730 jobs. In 17 of the 47 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $41,600, 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

Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX is the largest metro employer with 850 jobs, 3.5% of the national total. Two rankings follow across the 100 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

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, San Juan-Bayamon-Caguas, PR posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $25,590 a year, against $43,180 in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV. The lowest-paying large metro and the highest are both real markets for this occupation; the difference between them is the geography premium, or penalty, in cash terms.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median Helpers--Carpenters paycheck, gross, is $1,600 every two weeks on an annual $41,600, which is $3,467 a month and $800 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($35,870) to the 75th ($46,780) is worth $10,910 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 $45,760 would sit between the median ($41,600) and the 75th percentile ($46,780), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $35,870, is $5,730 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Construction and Extraction Occupations

The occupations BLS groups with this one, by size: Loading and Moving Machine Operators, Underground Mining, Extraction Workers, All Other, Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters, Helpers--Roofers, Floor Sanders and Finishers, Underground Mining Machine Operators, All Other. Every one of the 826 published occupations is indexed on the Careers hub.