Money · 1 of 5
What the numbers really say
Median rate
$99,000
Low hourly rate
$42,000
Top hourly rate
$276,000
The federal survey publishes musicians by the hour only, at $20.35 low, $47.80 median and $132.56 at the top tenth. Stretched over a normal 2,080 hour working year 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.