Last updated: April 16, 2026

Machinist Salary by State (2025-2026): BLS Pay Data for All 50 States

Machinist pay looks simple until you start hiring across state lines. A machinist in West Virginia has a median annual wage of $47,980. In Washington, the median is $64,510. Hawaii is higher at $77,060. Washington, DC is an outlier at $101,810. That spread matters if you run a precision shop, quote work nationally, or compete for machinists against aerospace and defense employers.

This page pulls wage data from CareerOneStop salary tables, which are built from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program. It also uses BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook figures for national employment and job outlook. Every key number links back to its source.

National machinist wage overview

The national median machinist wage is $56,150, or $27.00 per hour. That is a useful benchmark, but it hides the way this trade gets priced in the real world. Shops making aerospace parts, defense components, medical parts, and tight-tolerance tooling usually pay more than commodity production environments. Geography matters too. The state-level median in Hawaii is nearly 37% above the national figure, while West Virginia sits about 15% below it.

If you are asking how much does a machinist make, the short answer is that machinists make very different wages depending on market concentration, customer mix, and whether the shop relies on CNC machines, manual equipment, or both. The BLS employment and wage estimates released for May 2024 are the best national benchmark for earnings, and they are much more stable than job postings that swing week to week.

This is one reason machinist recruiting stays hard even when headline manufacturing growth cools off. The BLS says overall employment of machinists and tool and die makers is projected to decline 2% from 2024 to 2034, but the same source still projects about 35,400 openings each year on average. Replacement demand is doing a lot of the work. Veteran machinists retire, shops still need setup expertise, and buyers still need close-tolerance parts delivered on time.

1. National median machinist pay was $56,150 in 2024. CareerOneStop wage table
2. National median hourly pay was $27.00. CareerOneStop wage table
3. The average visible state median in this dataset is $57,659. State wage table source
4. Machinists held about 299,500 jobs in 2024. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook
5. About 35,400 annual openings for machinists and tool and die makers are projected over the decade. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook
6. Overall employment for machinists and tool and die makers is projected to decline 2% from 2024 to 2034. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook

Machinist salary by state table

The table below shows the median hourly and annual pay for machinists in every state plus Washington, DC. These machinist salaries by state are median figures, not advertised pay rates from job boards. For shop owners, they are a cleaner compensation benchmark. For writers and analysts, they are also safer to cite because they come from an official employment and wages data pipeline instead of self-reported salary submissions.

If you are trying to estimate the average salary for a machinist in your market, this dataset is a better starting point than a national average alone. The median wage is the middle of the market, not the full percentile spread, but it is still the fastest way to compare annual salary expectations per year across states. It also gives you a grounded estimate for what an average machinist or machinist job may cost before you layer on shift differential, overtime, bonus, and benefits.

Highest-paying states for machinists

If you strip out DC, which behaves more like a niche federal market than a typical manufacturing labor market, the highest-paying state median wages cluster in places with aerospace work, defense demand, tight labor pools, or smaller but specialized precision manufacturing bases. Hawaii and Alaska top the list, then Washington, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Oregon, and New Jersey. None of those are low-cost labor markets. If you need experienced setup talent, that matters more than the national median.

Another useful signal is what is not at the top. Several of the biggest manufacturing states, including Michigan, Indiana, and Tennessee, do not rank near the top of machinist pay. That tells you commodity volume does not automatically translate into wage leadership. Mix, scarcity, and customer requirements matter.

Lowest-paying states for machinists

The lowest-paying states are not necessarily bad markets for hiring. In fact, some can be attractive if your work mix supports training and internal development. The caution is that low state medians usually line up with lower advertised pay expectations, thinner pools of advanced setup talent, or less dense ecosystems around aerospace, medical, or tool-and-die work. If you need someone who can prove out a five-axis part on day one, you still may need to pay above local medians.

West Virginia sits at the bottom of this dataset at $47,980. Kansas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana, Vermont, and Georgia are all below $50,000. That makes the national median look less useful by itself, because a shop quoting work in Ohio, Georgia, and Washington is living in three different labor markets.

Regional patterns in machinist pay

New England shows up repeatedly near the top. Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire all beat the national median. That lines up with a regional mix heavy on defense suppliers, aerospace machining, medical manufacturing, and older precision shops that still need hands-on expertise. If you are trying to benchmark pay for a Swiss machining cell or close-tolerance milling work, New England is a better reality check than the broad national number.

The Pacific region also runs high. Washington and Oregon both clear $62,000, and California is still above the national median at $56,220. That said, California's pay premium is not as large as many employers expect, at least on the median line. Cost of living is one reason some shops still struggle to hire there even when the posted wage appears competitive.

The Midwest is more mixed than people assume. Ohio and Illinois are both above the national median. Wisconsin is below it. Michigan, despite its deep manufacturing base, sits under $50,000 on the median in this dataset. That does not mean advanced shops in Michigan pay poorly. It means statewide medians include a wide range of work, from basic production machining to higher-end prototype and tooling roles.

The Southeast gives you some of the clearest labor cost tradeoffs. Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, and North Carolina all sit in a workable middle band. Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi are lower. For a greenfield plant or contract manufacturing expansion, that can look attractive on paper. But lower state medians do not erase the need to pay a premium for experienced setup machinists, programmer-operators, and people who can hold tight tolerances without babysitting the machine.

How machinist wages compare with nearby manufacturing roles

Machinists sit in the middle of the skilled-trades pay ladder. They earn more than CNC tool operators at the national median, which makes sense because the machinist role usually carries more setup, troubleshooting, blueprint reading, material knowledge, and process judgment. At the same time, machinists trail tool and die makers and industrial machinery mechanics nationally, roles that often command a bigger premium for complexity, repair depth, or tooling specialization.

The national median for machinists is about 12% higher than the median for CNC tool operators. That gap matters if you are trying to move operator talent up into broader machinist responsibilities. It tells you what the market pays for setup skill and judgment. On the other side, machinists earn about 12% less than industrial machinery mechanics at the national median. That comparison helps explain why some plants lose mechanically gifted machinists into maintenance roles.

Tool and die makers are the clearest premium role in this comparison set. Their national median is $63,180, well ahead of the machinist median. If your shop relies on fixture design, die maintenance, or in-house tooling work, a flat "machinist pay" benchmark is not enough. You need role-specific bands by industry, experience level, and equipment complexity. That matters whether you are pricing a salary for a machinist, writing a compensation guide, or comparing one machinist job against another.

Job outlook and what this means for manufacturers

The BLS outlook for machinists is easy to misread. A projected 2% employment decline sounds like less pressure. That is not how it plays out in most plants. Skilled machinists leave through retirement, movement into programming or maintenance, and attrition into supervisory roles. The result is a market that still posts real openings, especially for second-shift setup people, Swiss and multi-axis talent, and workers who can handle first-article and in-process inspection without slowing throughput.

For manufacturers, the wage lesson is straightforward. State medians are a floor for planning, not a guarantee of hiring success. If your quality requirements are tight, your setup times are short, or your customer base is aerospace, defense, or medical, you probably need to budget above the median. If your shop can train from operator to machinist, lower-paying states may give you a stronger long-term labor model. If you need talent tomorrow, the higher-paying markets may be your real competition whether you are located there or not.

This is also where marketing and recruiting start to overlap. Shops that cannot outpay everyone can still compete by tightening job fit, shortening the hiring process, showing real equipment and work on their website, and building a steadier RFQ pipeline so they are not forced into panic hiring. Wage data helps you budget. It does not solve the visibility problem by itself. If you need an average annual planning figure, use state medians as the floor and then pressure-test that number against your real openings, the skill level required, and the local shop count competing for the same people.