2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic

United States. Estimated employment 171,200, with pages for 8 metro areas below.

Data released May 2025 BLS OEWS · SOC 51-4031
Fig. 1 — The wage rule

Where you sit in the distribution

Drag the marker, or type a figure
$46,330 · 50th
$35,76010th
$38,87025th
$46,33050th
$55,41075th
$65,51090th

That is the medianhalf of people in this occupation in the US earn more.

Table 1 — By metro area

Where it pays

Every published Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic page, by median pay. Employment is the BLS estimate for the metro.

Metro areaMedianEmployment
Flint, MI$78,600380
Saginaw, MI$55,630390
Detroit, MI$50,46011,650
Lansing, MI$48,200450
Muskegon, MI$47,330360
Jackson, MI$44,840240
Kalamazoo, MI$44,440280
Ann Arbor, MI$42,650410
Sources

How this page was made

Wage data
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. Public domain.
Employment
171,200 employed in this occupation nationally (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
Occupation
SOC 51-4031, Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic. Mapped to our taxonomy as cutting-punching-and-press-machine-setters-operators-and-tenders-metal-and-plastic.

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.