Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria: pay and employment
A source-dated national profile of employment scale, hourly and annual pay, and the estimated wage distribution.
Reading the national estimate
Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria accounted for an estimated 441,050 wage-and-salary jobs nationally in May 2025. BLS reports a mean annual wage of $38,810 and a median of $37,450. The measures describe the same occupation and reference period but answer different questions: the mean averages the reported distribution, while the median marks its midpoint.
Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria belongs to the Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations major group. The classification follows work performed, not merely the wording of an employer’s title. Readers matching a job should compare duties with the SOC framework before treating this page as the correct occupational benchmark. Finding the right SOC code explains that check.
The mean is 3.6% above the median. That relationship can reflect the shape of the wage distribution, including the influence of relatively high or low observations. It should not be read as a raise expectation or a forecast. For a definition-first explanation, see mean wage and median wage.
The reported mean hourly wage is $18.66. Annual and hourly figures use BLS conventions, so the annual measure is best compared with another annual OEWS estimate from the same release. A personal paycheck can differ because of hours, industry, experience, shift premiums, collective bargaining, and employer practices—factors this cross-industry estimate does not isolate.
BLS places the 10th-percentile annual wage at $28,480, the 25th percentile at $32,440, the 75th percentile at $44,800, and the 90th percentile at $49,670. The distance from the 10th to the 90th percentile is $21,190. Percentiles describe positions in the estimated distribution; they do not assign a worker to a pay level.
Related occupations provide useful classification context without implying that the jobs are interchangeable: Fast Food and Counter Workers, Waiters and Waitresses, Cooks, Restaurant, First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers. Each linked page keeps its own SOC code and wage distribution. For a broader view, compare the ranking tables in largest occupations and highest-paying occupations.
State pages add employment, jobs per 1,000, location quotient, mean wage, median wage, and hourly mean only where every required BLS value is present. Begin with Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria in California, Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria in Florida, Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria in Texas, Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria in Pennsylvania. A location quotient compares concentration, not demand or growth, so it should be read beside the employment count and wage measures.
This profile is based on the cross-industry national OEWS table for May 2025 and was checked on 2026-08-04. BLS sampling and estimation methods apply, and some detailed geography cells are suppressed when publication standards are not met. LaborBrief does not replace a suppressed value with a state average, national value, or modeled guess. See why BLS suppresses estimates and how we verify data.
Primary sources
- BLS OEWS tables — BLS OEWS, May 2025
- BLS OEWS questions and answers — coverage, methods, and downloads