The Pay Premium for Manufacturing Workers as Measured by Federal Statistics

Historically, manufacturing jobs have offered relatively high pay, but there is not a consensus on the size of the pay premium for manufacturing jobs relative to the economy as a whole or even whether a premium continues to exist.

This report calculates and compares the average pay of manufacturing workers and the average pay of workers overall using 10 federal datasets, each of which allows us to calculate and compare the average pay of manufacturing workers and the average pay of workers overall.