Pay · 51-6031
Sewing Machine Operators earn $36,670 a year at the midpoint
Pay is unusually even: nine in ten people earn between $27,860 and $47,840, around a midpoint of $36,670.
National figures for sewing machine operators, 51-6031, from the 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey.
- 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.”
Sewing machine operator earnings, from starting pay up to the top 10%
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Sewing machine operator pay rate, hourly to annual
Starts at this job’s median. Change the rate or the hours; a full-time year is 40 hours for 52 weeks.
Writing a resume for sewing machine operators
Name the job in the builder and the duties, skills and credentials it is screened on are written in for you.
- Monitored machine operation to detect problems such as defective stitching, breaks in thread, or machine malfunctions.
- Placed spools of thread, cord, or other materials on spindles, insert bobbins, and thread ends through machine guides and components.
- Positioned items under needles, using marks on machines, clamps, templates, or cloth as guides.
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.
Place 743 of 788 by median pay
Better paid than 6% of the occupations in the survey.
- 741 Teaching assistants $36,780
- 742 Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals $36,670
- 743 Sewing Machine Operators $36,670
- 744 Recreation Workers $36,560
- 745 Sewers, Hand $36,480
Examples
Resumes made for this kind of work.
Real sheets, filled in end to end — for this job and the ones beside it.
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Sewing machine operator wages across the states
The 39 states where the most people do this work, of 50 with a published figure: their medians range by 1.55 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.
| State | Median a year | Where most start | 10th to 90th | Employed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nevada | $45,750 | $30,730 | $30,730 — $55,550 | 910 |
| Colorado | $43,840 | $35,250 | $35,250 — $55,050 | 970 |
| Maine | $43,520 | $32,760 | $32,760 — $49,460 | 700 |
| Washington | $43,360 | $37,180 | $37,180 — $50,180 | 1,600 |
| Massachusetts | $42,910 | $35,580 | $35,580 — $53,990 | 1,540 |
| Wisconsin | $40,370 | $30,860 | $30,860 — $50,080 | 2,370 |
| Arizona | $40,210 | $34,690 | $34,690 — $47,310 | 1,420 |
| Oregon | $39,780 | $33,770 | $33,770 — $51,260 | 1,250 |
| South Dakota | $39,000 | $28,350 | $28,350 — $47,030 | 300 |
| Minnesota | $38,930 | $33,940 | $33,940 — $51,910 | 1,890 |
| New York | $38,480 | $33,790 | $33,790 — $55,290 | 6,130 |
| Indiana | $38,440 | $30,060 | $30,060 — $51,180 | 3,400 |
| South Carolina | $38,250 | $26,690 | $26,690 — $47,210 | 2,460 |
| California | $37,940 | $34,950 | $34,950 — $49,040 | 13,240 |
| Connecticut | $37,780 | $34,010 | $34,010 — $47,260 | 480 |
| Mississippi | $37,600 | $26,840 | $26,840 — $44,220 | 2,270 |
| Michigan | $37,490 | $30,200 | $30,200 — $46,790 | 3,210 |
| Idaho | $37,160 | $28,790 | $28,790 — $49,280 | 410 |
| Nebraska | $37,060 | $29,610 | $29,610 — $44,450 | 300 |
| Illinois | $36,220 | $33,060 | $33,060 — $46,720 | 4,060 |
| New Jersey | $36,130 | $32,220 | $32,220 — $46,170 | 2,750 |
| Iowa | $35,870 | $28,890 | $28,890 — $47,270 | 590 |
| Maryland | $35,860 | $31,200 | $31,200 — $55,390 | 1,390 |
| Virginia | $35,790 | $27,470 | $27,470 — $46,760 | 2,010 |
| Ohio | $35,760 | $29,530 | $29,530 — $43,890 | 4,100 |
| Pennsylvania | $35,640 | $28,340 | $28,340 — $45,510 | 3,390 |
| Arkansas | $35,630 | $27,810 | $27,810 — $45,660 | 860 |
| Missouri | $35,610 | $29,550 | $29,550 — $43,240 | 2,320 |
| Utah | $35,550 | $29,870 | $29,870 — $45,590 | 1,020 |
| Kansas | $35,360 | $28,380 | $28,380 — $46,070 | 650 |
| North Carolina | $35,160 | $26,560 | $26,560 — $48,570 | 8,290 |
| Georgia | $34,790 | $26,950 | $26,950 — $42,100 | 3,420 |
| Tennessee | $34,220 | $19,130 | $19,130 — $46,800 | 3,300 |
| Oklahoma | $33,340 | $23,850 | $23,850 — $44,350 | 580 |
| Florida | $33,270 | $27,360 | $27,360 — $46,230 | 6,790 |
| Texas | $31,000 | $21,420 | $21,420 — $44,290 | 6,950 |
| Alabama | $30,830 | $23,830 | $23,830 — $41,330 | 2,300 |
| Louisiana | $29,600 | $21,180 | $21,180 — $38,100 | 610 |
| Kentucky | $29,460 | $22,350 | $22,350 — $39,880 | 2,750 |
Questions people ask most
What is a sewing machine operator’s yearly income?
A sewing machine operator makes a median of $36,670 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $31,960 and $42,830.
What is a sewing machine operator’s hourly pay rate?
The median pay rate is $17.63 an hour; the average is $37,600 a year.
What is the starting pay for a sewing machine operator?
Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $31,960 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $27,860.
Which state pays sewing machine operators the most?
Nevada, with a median of $45,750 a year.
How many people work as sewing machine operators?
About 104,880 in the United States — number 743 of 788 occupations by median pay.
Work that pays nearly the same
Median pay within $110 of what sewing machine operators earn — $36,670 a year — but not always the same spread.
- Same median Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals $36,670median a year 10th percentile: $27,360 90th percentile: $54,080
- $110 more Teaching assistants $36,780median a year 10th percentile: $27,150 90th percentile: $50,040
- $110 less Recreation Workers $36,560median a year 10th percentile: $27,600 90th percentile: $50,410