U.S. Wage Landscape 2007: Which Jobs Earn Most and Least

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007 highlighted a broad spectrum of employment opportunities. Retail salespersons, cashiers, general office clerks, combined food preparation and serving workers, and registered nurses were among the most common occupations nationwide.

Conversely, the highest-earning roles were physician specialists, dentist specialists, and chief executives. On the lower end, dishwashers, fast‑food cooks, and other food preparation and serving workers earned the least.

Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics (OES)

The OES program supplies employment and wage estimates for 22 major occupational groups and 801 detailed occupations. Data are available for the entire nation, individual states, metropolitan and non‑metropolitan areas, and by industry. You can explore all OES data on the BLS OES homepage.

OES data let you compare wages and employment across occupations and industries. For instance, office and administrative support occupations had the largest workforce—over 23 million workers—spanning finance, insurance, health care, and retail trade. Mean hourly wages for this group ranged from $18.83 in utilities to $11.60 in accommodation and food services.

Key Pay Highlights

Within office and administrative support, first‑line supervisors and managers earned a mean hourly wage of $22.89, while postal service clerks and mail carriers earned $21.29 and $21.17, respectively. Lower‑paid roles included hotel desk clerks ($9.66), stock clerks ($10.93), and tellers ($11.36).

Geographic variation is notable: loan interviewers and clerks earned $22.65 per hour in Santa Cruz‑Watsonville, California, but only $9.79 in Alexandria, Louisiana, despite similar employment levels.

Industry Sector Insights

Beyond office support, sales and related occupations were the second largest group, with more than 14 million employees. Food preparation and serving, production, and transportation occupations also were sizeable. Management, business, and financial operations, and installation, maintenance, and repair occupations were more evenly spread across sectors.

Management was the highest‑paying group at a mean hourly wage of $46.22, followed by legal occupations at $42.53. Food preparation, farming, forestry, and building cleaning were among the lowest‑paying.

Sector pay disparities are striking: finance and insurance, information, and professional services consistently yielded higher wages, while accommodation, retail, and agriculture sectors offered lower pay. For example, business and financial operations wages ranged from $34.27 in professional services to $21.84 in accommodation and food services.

State and Metropolitan Comparisons

State‑level data reveal that financial managers earned between $66.20 in New York and $32.02 in West Virginia. Construction laborers earned $21.48 in Alaska but only $10.38 in Texas.

California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York were among the highest‑paying states for several occupations. Texas, while employing a large construction workforce, consistently ranked among the lowest payers.

At the metropolitan level, mean hourly wages for selected occupations could be twice as high in top areas compared to the lowest. For example, financial managers earned $68.22 in the New York‑Northern New Jersey‑Long Island region versus $27.18 in Pocatello, Idaho. Construction laborers earned $23.91 in Leominster‑Fitchburg‑Gardner, Massachusetts, but only $8.23 in Brownsville‑Harlingen, Texas.

Read the full report and view all data tables by visiting BLS Report.