Money · 1 of 4
What the numbers really say
Median, full time
$99,000
Bottom tenth, full time
$42,000
Top tenth, full time
$276,000
The federal survey publishes musicians and singers by the hour only: $20.35 at the bottom tenth, $47.80 at the median and $132.56 at the top tenth in 2025. Stretched over a full time year of 2,080 hours (40 hours a week for 52 weeks) those become about $42,000, $99,000 and $276,000. Treat all three as a ceiling rather than an expectation: almost nobody in this field is paid for 2,080 hours, and the survey publishes no annual figure precisely because full-time all-year work is rare here.