Graphic designer salary in the United States

The median pay for this job in the United States is $62,960 a year. Half of workers earn between $49,040 and $81,830.

BLS OEWS, May 2025: SOC 27-1024 Graphic Designers, 197,830 jobs.

Pay today

Where in the rangePay a year
10th percentile$39,520
25th percentile$49,040
Median$62,960
75th percentile$81,830
90th percentile$104,910

Annual pay across all industries, full and part time, before tax.

Pay at 30, 40 and 50

This is the app's forecast for one example: someone aged 25 with a bachelor's degree and 3 years of work experience, anywhere in the United States. That is the most common education for the job among US workers (BLS). A different age, education, experience or state changes the numbers.

AgeMedian, with likely range
30$55,000
$43,000 to $72,000
40$66,000
$51,000 to $85,000
50$70,000
$54,000 to $90,000

On this path pay is highest around age 50, with a median of $70,000.

The range is the 25th to 75th percentile, rounded to the nearest thousand, in today's money. It follows the age curve for people with this education (Census CPS). How it is worked out is on the home page.

Your own numbers. Salary Predictor for iPhone works this out for your age, job, education, experience and state, shows the age your pay tends to peak and where you stand against people your age.

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Median pay by state

StateMedian a year
District of Columbia$88,000
Rhode Island$78,000
New York$77,000
Massachusetts$77,000
California$75,000
Maryland$75,000
New Jersey$74,000
Connecticut$73,000
Washington$73,000
Virginia$72,000
Colorado$66,000
Oregon$66,000
Vermont$66,000
Minnesota$64,000
Nevada$63,000
Alaska$63,000
Illinois$63,000
Utah$62,000
Florida$62,000
Pennsylvania$61,000
New Hampshire$61,000
Georgia$60,000
Delaware$60,000
Texas$60,000
Ohio$60,000
Maine$60,000
Wisconsin$60,000
Arizona$58,000
North Carolina$58,000
Hawaii$58,000
Michigan$57,000
Tennessee$57,000
South Carolina$57,000
Montana$57,000
Missouri$57,000
Nebraska$57,000
New Mexico$57,000
North Dakota$56,000
Indiana$55,000
Kansas$54,000
Oklahoma$54,000
Kentucky$53,000
Alabama$51,000
Idaho$50,000
Iowa$50,000
Louisiana$50,000
South Dakota$48,000
Arkansas$46,000
Mississippi$46,000
Wyoming$45,000
West Virginia$40,000

BLS OEWS state estimates, May 2025. States where BLS does not publish a median for this job are left out. Rounded to the nearest thousand.

Other professionals in the United States

The same job elsewhere: Canada, United Kingdom.

Sources

  1. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics: national estimates. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025.
  2. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics: state estimates. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025.
  3. Educational attainment for workers 25 years and older by detailed occupation (Table 5.3). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2023-2024.
  4. PINC-03: Educational attainment by total money earnings, work experience and age. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2026 ASEC, 2025 earnings.
  5. Schooling, Experience, and Earnings. Jacob Mincer, National Bureau of Economic Research / Columbia University Press, 1974.
  6. Earnings Functions, Rates of Return and Treatment Effects: The Mincer Equation and Beyond. Heckman, Lochner & Todd, Handbook of the Economics of Education, vol. 1, 2006.
  7. The 'Mincer Equation' Thirty Years After Schooling, Experience, and Earnings. Thomas Lemieux, in Jacob Mincer: A Pioneer of Modern Labor Economics (Springer), 2006.
  8. The Lognormal Distribution, with Special Reference to its Uses in Economics. J. Aitchison & J. A. C. Brown, Cambridge University Press, 1957.

U.S. data are works of the U.S. federal government and in the public domain.