Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders · SOC 51-9124

Highest-Paying Metro Areas for Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenderss

Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025U.S. metropolitan areas

Metro areas ranked by published median annual wage for coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders. Areas where BLS suppressed the median are not ranked. Higher medians often track higher living costs — this is a pay comparison, not a ranking of where the job is “best”.

Top 25 of 337 metro areas

Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders: metro areas with the highest published median annual wages, May 2025
#	Metro area	Median annual	Employment	Per 1,000 jobs
1	Norwich-New London-Willimantic, CT	$69,600	70	0.5
2	Ames, IA	$69,090	60	1.1
3	Springfield, OH	$67,070	110	2.5
4	Lexington Park, MD	$66,570	40	0.6
5	Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury, CT	$63,360	270	0.7
6	Gulfport-Biloxi, MS	$63,180	700	4.4
7	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	$63,030	2,640	1.3
8	Charleston-North Charleston, SC	$62,280	600	1.5
9	Fayetteville, NC	$62,120	50	0.4
10	Sebastian-Vero Beach-West Vero Corridor, FL	$61,730	70	1.2
11	Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA	$61,260	50	0.5
12	Grand Forks, ND-MN	$61,220	60	1.2
13	Grand Junction, CO	$61,130	100	1.6
14	Grand Island, NE	$61,110	70	1.8
15	Mount Vernon-Anacortes, WA	$60,820	100	1.9
16	Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC	$59,970	1,780	2.3
17	Vallejo, CA	$59,930	110	0.8
18	Elizabethtown, KY	$59,800	90	1.7
19	Muskegon-Norton Shores, MI	$59,430	310	5.0
20	Portland-South Portland, ME	$59,420	310	1.1
21	Bismarck, ND	$59,250	40	0.5
22	San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA	$58,910	510	0.5
23	Longview-Kelso, WA	$58,790	80	2.0
24	Wichita, KS	$58,770	1,320	4.3
25	New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ	$58,520	3,250	0.3

Full state and metro tables, the national distribution, and the pay map are on the Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders overview.

About this data. Estimates are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, May 2025 release, retrieved from bls.gov/oes/tables.htm on July 24, 2026. OEWS estimates describe metropolitan/nonmetropolitan areas and states — not city limits — and are not designed for year-over-year comparisons. See BLS methodology, our plain-English methodology, and sources. CitySalaryData is independent and not affiliated with BLS.