BLS OEWS May 2025 · SOC 51-7021
How much do furniture finishers make?
The smallest trade occupation with a clean federal code, and the one closest to what furniture flipping looks like as a job.
- Median pay$44,540a year
- Median hourly$21.41an hour
- Mean pay$45,300a year
- Employed14,480nationally
Fourteen thousand people nationally, mostly in furniture manufacturing and repair rather than in resale. Someone flipping thrift finds for profit is self-employed and therefore outside the survey.
What furniture finishers earn, from the bottom tenth to the top
A single median hides the range, and in this trade the range is the useful part. These four figures are the published percentiles for occupation code 51-7021, not a calculation done here.
| Measure | Annual | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $32,160 | the bottom tenth earn less than this |
| Median | $44,540 | half earn more, half earn less |
| Mean | $45,300 | the average, pulled up by the top |
| 90th percentile | $61,020 | the top tenth earn more than this |
Hourly equivalents: $21.41 median, $21.78 mean
Where furniture finishers are paid most, and where there are most of them
Five highest paying states
| State | Mean annual |
|---|---|
| Massachusetts | $57,200 |
| Connecticut | $56,460 |
| New Hampshire | $52,570 |
| California | $51,670 |
| Colorado | $51,650 |
Five largest employing states
| State | Employed |
|---|---|
| Florida | 1,470 |
| Indiana | 1,280 |
| California | 1,010 |
| New York | 1,000 |
| Texas | 980 |
The two lists rarely overlap, and that is the point of showing both. A high mean wage usually tracks cost of living, while a high headcount tracks population. Neither on its own tells you where the work is.
SOC 51-7021 · 1 August 2026
What these figures actually say about furniture finishers
Fourteen thousand people nationally, mostly in manufacturing and repair, and almost none of them are the people this site means by furniture flipping.
The occupation sits inside furniture manufacturing and reupholstery rather than resale. Somebody flipping thrift finds for profit is self employed and therefore outside the survey, and in most cases outside the Census employer count as well. This is the smallest occupation on the site apart from theatrical makeup, and it is small for structural reasons rather than because the work is rare.
The distribution is unusually flat. The mean is almost exactly the median, and the gap between the tenth percentile and the ninetieth is modest by the standards of the trades here. That is what a workshop occupation with a stable hourly rate and little management layer looks like in wage data.
The employment table is the giveaway that this is a manufacturing occupation rather than a consumer one. The largest employing states include a traditional furniture manufacturing state well ahead of several much larger ones, which is not a pattern any consumer facing trade on this site produces.
The content audience for furniture flipping is far larger than the registered trade, which is the opposite of every other page in this dataset. It means views are easy and sales are not, and the only part of a post that converts is the one that says where the piece is and whether it is still available.
Every figure quoted above appears in the tables on this page or is arithmetic on them. Nothing here forecasts, values a business or suggests a price, because none of the three is measurable from a wage survey.
Where these numbers came from
Public domain US federal statistics, fetched by hand and baked into this site rather than called at build time. If you quote a figure from this page, cite the agency rather than this site, and use the wording below.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national cross industry estimates, occupation 51-7021 Furniture Finishers. Accessed 2026-08-01.
National, cross-industry estimates for wage and salary workers. Self-employed workers, owner-operators and chair or booth renters are not in scope.
bls.gov/oes and the published series files at download.bls.gov
How many of these businesses there are
Marketing the trade
All the numbers
Common questions
- How much do furniture finishers make?
- The median wage for furniture finishers in the United States is $44,540 a year, or $21.41 an hour. The mean is $45,300. The bottom tenth earn under $32,160 and the top tenth earn over $61,020. Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation code 51-7021.
- Does this include self-employed workers?
- No, and that matters more in this trade than the number does. OEWS covers wage and salary workers only. Self-employed workers, owner-operators, chair renters and single-van businesses are outside the survey entirely, so this is what an employed person in this job is paid, not what everyone doing this work earns.
- Which state pays the most?
- Massachusetts, at a mean of $57,200 a year, followed by Connecticut at $56,460. The five highest paying and five largest employing states are listed above, and a high mean usually reflects cost of living as much as opportunity.
- What does this actually tell a furniture finisher running their own business?
- Fourteen thousand people nationally, mostly in manufacturing and repair, and almost none of them are the people this site means by furniture flipping. The content audience for furniture flipping is far larger than the registered trade, which is the opposite of every other page in this dataset. It means views are easy and sales are not, and the only part of a post that converts is the one that says where the piece is and whether it is still available.
- How current is this figure?
- It is the May 2025 release, which is the most recent Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data published by BLS. It was fetched and baked into this site on 1 August 2026. This page makes no live API call, so what you see is what was checked on that date.
Numbers persuade nobody. The pair does.
Every trade on this page sells the same way: a photograph of the problem beside a photograph of the result. Take the two, and Before and After Video Maker turns them into a 1080p video, a looping GIF or a still.