Media and Communication 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 Media and Communication Workers, All Other ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $52,690. 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

May 2024 employment stood at 23,590, or 0.02% of the U.S. total. California leads the state table with 12,030 jobs; the top three states sum to 58.5% of the occupation. The concentration measure tells the more interesting story: California posts a location quotient of 4.35, so a worker there is far more likely to meet a colleague in this field than the national pattern suggests.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $109,540 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($148,070) is 3.8 times the 10th percentile ($38,530), a gap of $109,540 a year. The mean of $84,870 sitting above the median of $71,770 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 Media and Communication Workers, All Other runs from the $97,590 median in California down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in California (12,030 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Media and Communication Workers, All Other stands number 522 by employment and number 274 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations, the group median wage is $66,220 across 36 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 8% more than its group median, and it supplies 1.2% of the group's 1,989,300 jobs. In 3 of the 38 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $71,770, 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 7,570 jobs, 32.1% 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, $76,240 a year, against $120,430 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

The median Media and Communication Workers, All Other paycheck, gross, is $2,760 every two weeks on an annual $71,770, which is $5,981 a month and $1,380 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($52,690) to the 75th ($99,520) is worth $46,830 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 $78,947 would sit between the median ($71,770) and the 75th percentile ($99,520), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $52,690, is $19,080 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Media and Communication Equipment Workers, All Other, Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners, Music Directors and Composers, Set and Exhibit Designers, Lighting Technicians, Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.