Cooks, Short Order
United States. Estimated employment 138,650, with pages for 14 metro areas below.
Data released May 2025
BLS OEWS · SOC 35-2015
Fig. 1 — The wage rule
Where you sit in the distribution
Drag the marker, or type a figure
$35,880 · 50th
$23,44010th
$30,61025th
$35,88050th
$42,45075th
$46,46090th
That is the median — half of people in this occupation in the US earn more.
Table 1 — By metro area
Where it pays
Every published Cooks, Short Order page, by median pay. Employment is the BLS estimate for the metro.
| Metro area | Median | Employment |
|---|---|---|
| Santa Rosa, CA | $46,450 | 700 |
| San Jose, CA | $45,990 | 1,660 |
| San Francisco, CA | $45,790 | 4,430 |
| Vallejo, CA | $45,360 | 240 |
| Napa, CA | $43,930 | 150 |
| Los Angeles, CA | $43,680 | 12,410 |
| Rochester, NY | $36,580 | 1,180 |
| Kingston, NY | $36,310 | 210 |
| Ithaca, NY | $36,200 | 130 |
| Syracuse, NY | $36,190 | 680 |
| Kiryas Joel, NY | $36,170 | 830 |
| Glens Falls, NY | $35,950 | 130 |
| New York, NY | $35,360 | 9,990 |
| Binghamton, NY | $35,240 | 270 |
Sources
How this page was made
- Wage data
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. Public domain.
- Employment
- 138,650 employed in this occupation nationally (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
- Occupation
- SOC 35-2015, Cooks, Short Order. Mapped to our taxonomy as cooks-short-order.
Percentiles are reported exactly as released and are never interpolated between published values. We take no payment from employers, recruiters or anyone else for how any figure is presented.