The Average Photographer

Last week, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released its semi-annual Occupational Employment and Wage Summary based on survey data collected in May 2013. This provides an estimate of the average wages for most occupations in the USA.

It’s important to remember that statistics often tell only half the story.

According to the survey, there are 54,830 “employed” photographers. This seemingly does not include freelance or self-employed photographers (more on this in a moment). The average annual pay for these employed photographers was $37,190.

For comparison, the US national average annual wage for all occupations was $46,440.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said in May 2012 that there were 136,300 professional photographers in the US. This number includes self-employed photographers. The median annual wage was $28,490. By comparison, the median national annual wage for all occupations in May 2012 was $34,756.

In Canada, the situation seems to be quite similar.

In 2011, Statistics Canada reported that the average annual income was $48,100 for men and $32,100 for women. If you average those two numbers and take into account that there are about 10% more male than female workers then the national average wage for all occupations was just over $44,000. I suspect that if you had up-to-date 2013 Canadian numbers, the result would be more similar to the 2013 US number.

Using 2011 data, the average full-time photographer in Quebec earned $29,300 which is well below the average wage for all occupations. This average annual income of $29,300 may well apply nationally.

In 2008, the average Ontario artist annual income (and “artist” seems to include some types of photographers) was $23,500. Just to point out that Ontario’s minimum wage is $23,712 per year.

Also according to StatsCan, in 2006 there were 13,335 professional photographers (category F121) which is in line with the US number after you allow for the difference in population size.

In the US, the number of “professional” photographers jumped by 25% from 2006 to 2008. One might guess that the number of Canadian photographers also grew by a similar amount during this same time period.

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence but the period of 2006 to 2008 corresponds to when Canon introduced its cheap Rebel series of cameras and Nikon brought out its bottom-end D40/50/70 cameras.