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Pay · 27-3041

Editors earn $77,920 a year at the midpoint

Where you land matters more here than in most jobs — the top tenth earn more than 3.7 times the bottom tenth. The midpoint is $77,920.

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$77,920median a year · United States
$37.46an hour $90,060average 91,690people
Nine in ten people in this work earn between the two ends. The shaded part is the middle half — where most people are.
$57,30025th $77,920median $106,10075th
$41,25010th percentile $153,70090th percentile
$57,300a year at the 25th percentile, nearer a first job
$101,480best-paying state · New York
$45,950lowest-paying state · Texas
+30%top state against the national median
  • Read the spread, not the middle. The median is the midpoint across everyone in the occupation, most of them years into the work. A beginner starts nearer the 10th to 25th percentile, which is why the spread is published alongside it.
  • What the figure counts. The figure counts base pay plus tips, commissions and production bonuses. It leaves out the self-employed, unpaid family workers, private household workers, and the value of benefits or profit sharing.
  • Where you live moves it more than your resume does. National figures. A state or metro area can sit far from the national number, and that gap is usually larger than any difference a resume makes.
  • Not in these numbers. Growth and annual openings are not in this dataset. They come from the separate Employment Projections tables, where an opening is a modelled ten year average and not a posted vacancy.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Retrieved through the BLS Public Data API on 2026-08-13. bls.gov/oes “BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.”

State matters a lotThe same job pays $101,480 in New York and $45,950 in Texas — a gap of $55,530 a year.

Editor earnings, from starting pay to the best-paid 10%

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Editor wages in each state

The 49 states where the most people do this work, of 50 with a published figure: their medians range by 2.21 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.

State Median a year Where most start 10th to 90th Employed
New York $101,480 $57,910 $57,910 — $179,370 16,800
California $98,030 $52,510 $52,510 — $173,590 14,830
Connecticut $85,950 $47,020 $47,020 — $145,340 1,050
District of Columbia $83,920 $64,440 $64,440 — $170,460 3,310
Massachusetts $83,170 $47,320 $47,320 — $136,360 3,100
New Jersey $81,680 $53,150 $53,150 — $138,610 2,120
Virginia $80,590 $45,760 $45,760 — $144,810 2,720
Rhode Island $77,960 $50,900 $50,900 — $102,890 340
Colorado $77,870 $44,570 $44,570 — $115,940 1,830
Washington $77,850 $50,320 $50,320 — $128,630 1,860
Georgia $76,650 $46,080 $46,080 — $124,000 1,920
Illinois $76,060 $46,410 $46,410 — $107,850 4,560
Maryland $75,550 $46,740 $46,740 — $124,990 1,850
Delaware $75,020 $41,770 $41,770 — $106,420 170
Florida $73,950 $43,230 $43,230 — $121,380 3,790
North Carolina $73,740 $44,050 $44,050 — $103,990 1,870
Ohio $72,160 $37,440 $37,440 — $124,730 1,800
Oregon $71,540 $44,660 $44,660 — $111,390 1,110
Vermont $66,860 $48,320 $48,320 — $143,630 240
New Hampshire $66,510 $47,870 $47,870 — $113,570 250
Utah $65,040 $40,470 $40,470 — $119,680 590
Wisconsin $64,270 $39,470 $39,470 — $102,530 1,510
New Mexico $64,250 $38,390 $38,390 — $116,640 230
Alaska $63,630 $43,030 $43,030 — $106,250 60
Pennsylvania $63,460 $37,240 $37,240 — $114,560 3,240
Alabama $63,330 $35,600 $35,600 — $103,890 530
Arizona $63,090 $42,360 $42,360 — $109,090 820
Michigan $63,090 $33,230 $33,230 — $99,980 1,690
Minnesota $62,650 $43,370 $43,370 — $102,270 1,970
South Carolina $62,000 $39,380 $39,380 — $119,660 500
Kansas $61,920 $35,690 $35,690 — $107,140 500
Montana $61,750 $32,190 $32,190 — $122,940 200
Missouri $61,620 $36,060 $36,060 — $104,680 880
North Dakota $60,520 $30,660 $30,660 — $92,930 200
Tennessee $59,550 $37,600 $37,600 — $105,010 1,390
Kentucky $59,430 $39,040 $39,040 — $149,990 490
Louisiana $58,860 $36,680 $36,680 — $97,740 330
Iowa $57,200 $38,050 $38,050 — $108,820 900
South Dakota $56,730 $47,770 $47,770 — $79,180 140
West Virginia $56,630 $28,180 $28,180 — $100,910 260
Indiana $56,440 $30,860 $30,860 — $99,380 830
Hawaii $55,070 $32,930 $32,930 — $107,200 100
Mississippi $54,380 $28,440 $28,440 — $83,200 290
Oklahoma $50,780 $31,550 $31,550 — $85,730 500
Arkansas $50,180 $28,840 $28,840 — $76,950 260
Maine $50,180 $33,170 $33,170 — $121,320 300
Wyoming $46,710 $29,590 $29,590 — $82,920 110
Nebraska $46,320 $32,280 $32,280 — $72,740 360
Texas $45,950 $29,040 $29,040 — $105,440 6,460

No estimate is published for 1 states: the survey withholds a figure when too few employers report it. Nothing has been filled in for them.

Editor pay rate, hourly to yearly

Starts at this job’s median. Change the rate or the hours; a full-time year is 40 hours for 52 weeks.

$77,917a year

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This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The owner of tiersi.com has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

Nearby work, and what it pays

Occupations in the same group of the federal classification — the usual next steps, or the ones beside this one.

Editors$77,920
Public Relations Specialists$74,750−$3,170 Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners$72,420−$5,500 News Analysts, Reporters, and Journalists$62,200−$15,720 Broadcast Announcers and Radio Disc Jockeys$47,340−$30,580

No. 228 of 788 by median pay

Better paid than 71% of the occupations in the survey.

  1. 226 First-Line Supervisors of Correctional Officers $77,970
  2. 227 Therapists, All Other $77,930
  3. 228 Editors $77,920
  4. 229 Postsecondary Teachers, All Other $77,640
  5. 230 Social Work Teachers, Postsecondary $77,570

Questions people ask most

What is an editor’s yearly income?

An editor makes a median of $77,920 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $57,300 and $106,100.

What is an editor’s hourly pay rate?

The median pay rate is $37.46 an hour; the average is $90,060 a year.

What is the starting pay for an editor?

Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $57,300 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $41,250.

Which state pays editors the most?

New York, with a median of $101,480 a year.

How many people work as editors?

About 91,690 in the United States — number 228 of 788 occupations by median pay.

Jobs that pay about the same

Median pay within $200 of what editors earn — $77,920 a year — but not always the same spread.

See all 788 occupations