Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners Salary and Pay
How much do Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners make?
The median Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners worker earns $48,970 a year ($23.54), and the mean annual wage is $51,790. BLS counted 5,730 people in this occupation in May 2024. The middle half of earners make between $39,520 and $60,210.
The complete pay picture for Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners: 5,730 jobs nationally, a median of $48,970, and the state and metro tables that show where that median is beaten and where it is not.
Updated November 5, 2026
Salary converter for this occupation
Conversions use 12 months, 26 biweekly periods, 52 weeks, and 2,080 hours. No level in this occupation's ladder reaches the BLS top code, so every figure the converter shows is a published estimate rather than a floor.
The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)
| Pay level | Annual wage | Hourly wage |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $33,770 | $16.24 |
| 25th percentile | $39,520 | $19.00 |
| Median (50th) | $48,970 | $23.54 |
| 75th percentile | $60,210 | $28.95 |
| 90th percentile | $74,120 | $35.64 |
Read the ladder vertically: each row is the wage of the Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners worker at that point in the distribution, so $60,210 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
May 2024 employment stood at 5,730, or 0.00% of the U.S. total. California leads the state table with 640 jobs; the top three states sum to 26.9% of the occupation. The concentration measure tells the more interesting story: Oregon posts a location quotient of 5.59, so a worker there is far more likely to meet a colleague in this field than the national pattern suggests.
The spread matters as much as the center. Earners at the 90th percentile make $74,120, which is 2.2 times the $33,770 at the 10th, a difference of $40,350 annually. Because the mean wage ($51,790) sits above the median ($48,970), a typical offer should be judged against the median and the 25th to 75th percentile band, not the mean.
Pay by state
Washington posts the highest median annual wage in the state table at $72,390, and California the largest headcount. The full table, sorted by employment:
| State | Employment | Jobs per 1,000 | Location quotient | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 640 | 0.0 | 0.95 | $52,240 | $50,060 |
| Washington | 490 | 0.1 | 3.74 | $73,960 | $72,390 |
| Oregon | 410 | 0.2 | 5.59 | $62,670 | $59,850 |
| Texas | 400 | 0.0 | 0.78 | $41,060 | $38,190 |
| Michigan | 390 | 0.1 | 2.41 | $48,290 | $46,020 |
| Pennsylvania | 330 | 0.1 | 1.48 | $43,330 | $42,680 |
| Alabama | 260 | 0.1 | 3.40 | $44,080 | $40,440 |
| Ohio | 260 | 0.0 | 1.28 | $57,520 | $56,470 |
| Wisconsin | 180 | 0.1 | 1.62 | $46,010 | $48,080 |
| Arkansas | 170 | 0.1 | 3.54 | $46,450 | $38,650 |
| New York | 170 | 0.0 | 0.48 | $45,160 | $43,260 |
| North Carolina | 170 | 0.0 | 0.93 | $46,280 | $44,230 |
| Georgia | 160 | 0.0 | 0.89 | $53,610 | $57,740 |
| Virginia | 120 | 0.0 | 0.77 | $38,340 | $34,310 |
| Connecticut | 110 | 0.1 | 1.74 | n/p | n/p |
| South Carolina | 110 | 0.1 | 1.35 | $51,820 | $50,030 |
| Florida | 80 | 0.0 | 0.21 | $40,250 | $38,870 |
| Indiana | 70 | 0.0 | 0.57 | $47,520 | $45,830 |
| Maine | 70 | 0.1 | 3.05 | $49,140 | $48,840 |
| Tennessee | 70 | 0.0 | 0.55 | $42,910 | $35,600 |
| Idaho | 60 | 0.1 | 1.76 | $63,200 | $65,500 |
| Louisiana | 60 | 0.0 | 0.78 | $52,360 | $50,900 |
| Minnesota | 60 | 0.0 | 0.54 | $60,010 | $51,700 |
| Missouri | 60 | 0.0 | 0.58 | $56,850 | $49,700 |
| New Hampshire | 60 | 0.1 | 2.44 | $46,480 | $42,000 |
| Oklahoma | 60 | 0.0 | 0.99 | $41,790 | $40,110 |
| Iowa | 50 | 0.0 | 0.83 | $46,020 | $43,400 |
| Mississippi | 50 | 0.0 | 1.20 | $46,850 | $48,320 |
| Nebraska | 50 | 0.1 | 1.38 | $53,210 | $58,240 |
| Kentucky | 40 | 0.0 | 0.58 | $56,930 | $53,780 |
| Colorado | n/p | n/p | n/p | $56,040 | $47,170 |
| Kansas | n/p | n/p | n/p | $50,770 | $52,390 |
| Massachusetts | n/p | n/p | n/p | $52,740 | $54,760 |
| New Jersey | n/p | n/p | n/p | $60,590 | $64,510 |
The occupation in context
Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners stands number 747 by employment and number 546 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 6% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.1% of the group's 8,743,430 jobs. In 15 of the 33 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $48,970, 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 270 jobs, 4.7% of the national total. The first table ranks metros by employment; the second ranks them by mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs in the occupation, because a three-person metro can top a pay table by accident.
Largest metro employers
| Metropolitan area | Employment | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 270 | $49,070 | $50,060 |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 240 | $84,900 | $91,850 |
| Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | 200 | $63,600 | $61,360 |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 180 | $53,570 | $50,350 |
| Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood, MI | 150 | $46,820 | $42,100 |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 140 | $39,100 | $34,840 |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 90 | $43,360 | $43,200 |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 70 | $41,860 | $41,540 |
| Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 60 | $54,190 | $51,670 |
| Eugene-Springfield, OR | 60 | $63,170 | $59,010 |
What the median pay looks like as a budget
The median Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners paycheck, gross, is $1,883 every two weeks on an annual $48,970, which is $4,081 a month and $942 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($39,520) to the 75th ($60,210) is worth $20,690 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 $53,867 would sit between the median ($48,970) and the 75th percentile ($60,210), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $39,520, is $9,450 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
Pay for the neighboring roles in the same BLS major group: Extruding and Drawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic, Woodworking Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Except Sawing, Food Processing Workers, All Other, Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Tool and Die Makers, Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders. The full directory is on the Careers hub.
Frequently asked questions
How much do Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners make an hour?
The median hourly wage is $23.54, and the mean hourly wage is $24.90, from the May 2024 OEWS estimates. Annual figures for Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners use the survey's 2,080-hour year where a conversion is needed, which is how the $48,970 annual median and the hourly figures reconcile.
Which state pays Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners the most?
Washington, with a median annual wage of $72,390 across 490 jobs. The full state table on this page ranks every publishing state by employment and shows median and mean side by side.
How big is the Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners workforce?
5,730 wage and salary workers in May 2024, 0.00% of U.S. employment in the survey. Employment concentrates most in Oregon by location quotient (5.59).
How current is this Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners salary data?
These are the May 2024 OEWS estimates behind the $48,970 median and the 5,730 job count on this page, released by BLS on April 2, 2025 and downloaded on November 5, 2026. OEWS is an employer survey, so those figures describe wages actually paid in this occupation, not advertised ranges.