Median pay · the United States
$43,220A year, or $21 an hour.| Percentile | Annual | Hourly |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile1 in 10 earn less | $33,390 | $16 |
| 25th percentile | $36,850 | $18 |
| MedianHalf earn more, half less | $43,220 | $21 |
| 75th percentile | $49,070 | $24 |
| 90th percentile1 in 10 earn more | $60,030 | $29 |
| MeanAll pay divided by all jobs | $44,590 | $21 |
Wage survey · BLS May 2025
How we got this
- Median wage in the United StatesBLS OEWS May 2025. Half of the people in this job were paid more than this, half less.$43,220
- Median hourly wagePublished separately by BLS, not divided out of the annual figure.$20.78
- Jobs countedWage and salary jobs; the self-employed are not surveyed.379,060
What we assumed
- Wages are BLS OEWS survey estimates for May 2025, not job postings or offers.
- OEWS surveys wage and salary workers. The self-employed and business owners are outside it.
Technical details
Method occupation-wage-v1Data bls-oews-2025-05-v1
Run the numbers on your own pay
Same U.S. tax tables as the rest of the site. Change the salary, state, or filing status.
Which state pays packaging machine operators the most?
New Hampshire pays a median of $49,450, New Mexico $35,640. That is a gap of $13,810 before either state's taxes or prices are counted.
- New Hampshire. See take-home and local prices in New Hampshire →
- The nominal figure is not the comparison. A higher salary in an expensive state can leave less than a lower one somewhere cheap. Each state page adjusts for tax and price level.
Common questions
Packaging Machine Operator pay in the United States, answered
How much does a packaging machine operator make?
The median wage for packaging machine operators in the United States is $43,220 a year, or $20.78 an hour.
Half earn more than that and half earn less. The figure comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational wage survey for May 2025.
What is the average packaging machine operator salary?
BLS’s mean (average) wage for packaging machine operators in the United States is $44,590 a year. The median is $43,220.
The mean sits higher when a smaller group of high earners pulls the average up. For a typical paycheck, the median is the better middle.
What is the hourly pay for a packaging machine operator?
The median hourly wage is $20.78. At a full-time year that lines up with about $43,220 a year.
BLS May 2025; hourly and annual figures come from the same survey.
What is the starting salary for a packaging machine operator?
BLS does not publish starting pay. The closest figure it does publish is the low end of the range: in the United States, the lowest-paid 10% of packaging machine operators earn under $33,390 a year and a quarter earn under $36,850 ($16.06 and $17.72 an hour).
New hires often start somewhere in that band, but the May 2025 survey does not record experience, so read it as a floor to compare an offer against rather than a typical first salary.
What is the salary range for a packaging machine operator?
The overall salary range for packaging machine operators in the United States spans from $33,390 for the bottom 10% to $60,030 for top earners.
The middle 50% earn between $36,850 and $49,070 a year, with the overall median at $43,220.
What do the highest-paid packaging machine operators earn?
The top tenth earn $60,030 a year or more. The 10th-percentile wage is $33,390.
Experience, specialty, employer and the part of the United States someone works in all move a wage inside that range; the survey reports the spread, not the reason for it.
How many packaging machine operators are there in the United States?
The survey counted 379,060 of these jobs in the United States for May 2025.
It counts wage and salary jobs, so the self-employed are outside it.