beta
Write my resume

Pay · 39-4021

Funeral Attendants earn $35,680 a year at the midpoint

Most funeral attendants are paid close to one another — the middle is $35,680, and even the ends, $28,070 and $48,460, are not far off.

Write my resume for this job →

$35,680median a year · United States
$17.16an hour $37,190average 31,090people
Nine in ten people in this work earn between the two ends. The shaded part is the middle half — where most people are.
$30,38025th $35,680median $42,87075th
$28,07010th percentile $48,46090th percentile
$30,380a year at the 25th percentile, nearer a first job
$55,850best-paying state · New Hampshire
$29,160lowest-paying state · Kentucky
+57%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.
  • The annual figure is arithmetic. For hourly occupations the annual figure is the hourly rate times 2080 hours. It is a calculation, not observed earnings: part time is the norm in retail and food service.
  • 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 $55,850 in New Hampshire and $29,160 in Kentucky — a gap of $26,690 a year.

Funeral attendant earnings, from starting pay up to the top 10%

Pick the job, where you work and how long you have done it. The range comes from the published wage percentiles for that job.

Experience
Name this figure
When they ask “What are your salary expectations?”

An estimate from survey percentiles, not an offer. Employer, industry, shift and credentials move pay within and beyond this range. Full wage page for this job →

Funeral attendant wages, state by state

The 37 states where the most people do this work, of 48 with a published figure: their medians range by 1.84 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.

State Median a year Where most start 10th to 90th Employed
Rhode Island $53,580 $32,770 $32,770 — $53,870 190
Massachusetts $46,280 $31,200 $31,200 — $69,440 1,090
Connecticut $45,800 $35,090 $35,090 — $58,500 520
Minnesota $43,910 $35,110 $35,110 — $47,470 400
New York $42,210 $35,210 $35,210 — $55,130 1,450
Colorado $41,710 $36,150 $36,150 — $54,760 160
Washington $41,600 $35,150 $35,150 — $46,210 160
Utah $41,130 $31,180 $31,180 — $52,000 270
Iowa $40,060 $36,950 $36,950 — $47,560 460
Maine $39,330 $35,140 $35,140 — $46,490 220
Missouri $39,270 $30,250 $30,250 — $52,910 620
Maryland $39,020 $36,030 $36,030 — $47,110 670
California $38,700 $35,950 $35,950 — $53,750 1,790
New Jersey $37,240 $32,220 $32,220 — $74,370 540
Pennsylvania $36,300 $31,280 $31,280 — $48,870 1,930
Wisconsin $36,030 $28,430 $28,430 — $46,740 500
Illinois $35,690 $31,200 $31,200 — $45,140 730
Ohio $35,640 $28,050 $28,050 — $49,440 1,720
Arizona $35,450 $30,580 $30,580 — $45,920 420
Michigan $35,380 $28,880 $28,880 — $46,480 1,460
Virginia $35,010 $27,910 $27,910 — $44,720 1,450
North Carolina $34,940 $24,480 $24,480 — $47,190 1,610
New Mexico $34,890 $31,490 $31,490 — $46,770 170
Indiana $34,420 $29,770 $29,770 — $46,730 1,080
West Virginia $31,410 $27,630 $27,630 — $45,430 350
Kansas $30,720 $21,430 $21,430 — $37,630 330
Texas $30,560 $27,300 $27,300 — $38,380 2,150
Georgia $30,530 $24,200 $24,200 — $43,270 1,070
Mississippi $30,530 $22,090 $22,090 — $43,980 280
Oklahoma $30,530 $21,940 $21,940 — $42,760 510
Louisiana $30,370 $17,590 $17,590 — $42,470 560
Alabama $30,310 $22,660 $22,660 — $44,130 550
Florida $30,210 $28,860 $28,860 — $40,180 1,700
Nebraska $30,170 $28,080 $28,080 — $35,660 270
South Carolina $29,880 $21,900 $21,900 — $45,410 930
Tennessee $29,600 $23,990 $23,990 — $38,160 1,090
Kentucky $29,160 $22,430 $22,430 — $35,790 560

Writing a resume for funeral attendants

Name the job in the builder and the duties, skills and credentials it is screened on are written in for you.

Microsoft Office softwareiCIMS Talent Cloud softwareMicrosoft ExcelMicrosoft WordBookkeeping software
  • Greeted people at the funeral home.
  • Performed a variety of tasks during funerals to assist funeral directors and to ensure that services run smoothly and as planned.
  • Closed caskets at appropriate point in services.

Write my resume →

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.

Number 756 of 788 by median pay

Better paid than 4% of the occupations in the survey.

  1. 754 Manicurists and pedicurists $35,760
  2. 755 Graders and Sorters, Agricultural Products $35,730
  3. 756 Funeral Attendants $35,680
  4. 757 Automotive and Watercraft Service Attendants $35,670
  5. 758 Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse $35,660

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.

Funeral Attendants$35,680
Embalmers$58,780+$23,100 Morticians, Undertakers, and Funeral Arrangers$55,010+$19,330

Funeral attendant pay rate, from 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.

$35,693a year

Examples

Resumes made for this kind of work.

Real sheets, filled in end to end — for this job and the ones beside it.

All templates →

Questions people often ask

What is a funeral attendant’s yearly income?

A funeral attendant makes a median of $35,680 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $30,380 and $42,870.

What is a funeral attendant’s hourly pay rate?

The median pay rate is $17.16 an hour; the average is $37,190 a year.

What is the starting pay for a funeral attendant?

Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $30,380 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $28,070.

Which state pays funeral attendants the most?

New Hampshire, with a median of $55,850 a year.

How many people work as funeral attendants?

About 31,090 in the United States — number 756 of 788 occupations by median pay.

Work that pays roughly the same

Median pay within $150 of what funeral attendants earn — $35,680 a year — but not always the same spread.

See all 788 occupations