Food Preparation Workers Average Salary in Pennsylvania
$31,880 average · $31,880 median · BLS OEWS 2025
SOC Code: 35-2021What is this?
This page shows employer-reported wages for Food Preparation Workers in Pennsylvania, drawn from the Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS survey — median and mean pay, the full percentile distribution, and the industries that employ this occupation locally. For tipped roles, venue economics dominate — the same skills earn multiples more at a high-volume, high-check establishment. For kitchen roles, the ladder from line cook through sous chef to kitchen manager is the pay path, and it is climbed by demonstrated reliability more than credentials. Hotel and institutional food service generally out-pays restaurants at equivalent levels and adds benefits.
How much do Food Preparation Workers make in Pennsylvania?
The average food preparation workers salary in Pennsylvania is $31,880 per year. That works out to about $15.33 per hour on average. BLS counts roughly 17,940 food preparation workers jobs in Pennsylvania.
Mean and median are close, so pay is relatively concentrated around $31,880. Entry-level roles (10th percentile) report about $31,880; experienced workers at the 90th percentile report about $31,880 — a 0% spread from bottom to top. Figures are employer-reported wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program — not self-reported survey averages — so they are the right baseline for offers, raises, and relocation decisions in this market.
How Food Preparation and Serving Careers Are Structured
Food service is the largest low-wage occupational group in the country, and also one where the published data most understates true variation: tipped earnings are inconsistently captured, so wages for servers and bartenders in busy, high-priced markets can run far above the recorded figures, while quiet-market wages match them.
The wage tables and percentile chart on this page show how food preparation workers pay is distributed in Pennsylvania specifically — and because state-level wages for the same occupation routinely differ by 30% or more, the local figures here are the ones that matter for offers, raises, and relocation decisions in this market.
What Moves Pay in This Field
For tipped roles, venue economics dominate — the same skills earn multiples more at a high-volume, high-check establishment. For kitchen roles, the ladder from line cook through sous chef to kitchen manager is the pay path, and it is climbed by demonstrated reliability more than credentials. Hotel and institutional food service generally out-pays restaurants at equivalent levels and adds benefits.
Entry is immediate and the skills are learned working. The realistic financial trajectories are: into supervision (the first-line supervisor premium over crew wages is visible and substantial in this data), into institutional settings with benefits, or out — food service experience transfers credibly into sales, customer success, and operations roles with stronger distributions.
New to reading wage distributions? Our guide to salary percentiles explains how to place yourself on the chart above, and the negotiation playbook shows how to use these numbers in an actual conversation.
What Do Food Preparation Workers Do?
Food Preparation Workers positions belong to the food preparation and serving field. Food service is the largest low-wage occupational group in the country, and also one where the published data most understates true variation: tipped earnings are inconsistently captured, so wages for servers and bartenders in busy, high-priced markets can run far above the recorded figures, while quiet-market wages match them.
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Code: 35-2021
Food Preparation Workers pay in Pennsylvania
In Pennsylvania, food preparation workers report a median of $31,880 (about $15.33/hour) across roughly 17,940 jobs. The local pay band runs from about $31,880 at the 10th percentile to $31,880 at the 90th.
Compared with the national distribution, local industry mix and cost of living are the main reasons Pennsylvania wages for this occupation sit where they do — toggle Regional Price Parity on this page to see purchasing-power-adjusted pay.
What your paycheck is really worth in Pennsylvania
Prices in Pennsylvania run 2% below the national average (RPP 97.6). So a nominal salary of $31,880 has the buying power of about $32,673 in national terms.
Pennsylvania vs. United States for Food Preparation Workers
The median food preparation workers salary in Pennsylvania is $31,880, which is -9.3% below the national median of $35,150 (mean pay is -10.0% below the U.S. mean of $35,406). Among 51 states and D.C. with OEWS data, Pennsylvania ranks #39 by median wage for this occupation. Pennsylvania accounts for about 0.4% of U.S. food preparation workers employment in the latest OEWS release.
See every state ranked for this occupation on the best-paying states page, or compare purchasing power on real wages.
Income reality check
The median salary for Food Preparation Workers in Pennsylvania of $31,880 falls in the Low-income band of this framework - roughly ~18% of the U.S. population and ~25% of the global population sit in this band.
Illustrative relative standing for education only - this ladder is a simplified framework, not an official Census, BLS, or World Bank statistical series. Salary figures on Wage Atlas come from official BLS OEWS data.
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Occupation Report Card
Top Industries for Food Preparation Workers
| $39,719 | $39,592 | $19 | 125,740 | |
| $37,294 | $36,563 | $18 | 243,590 | |
| $34,656 | $34,847 | $17 | 1,733,380 |
Related Occupations
SOC: 53-3053 • 89% match | $39,822 | $39,880 | $19 | 1,304,760 |
SOC: 35-3041 • 89% match | $36,469 | $36,010 | $18 | 1,585,440 |
SOC: 35-9021 • 92% match | $34,247 | $34,180 | $16 | 2,719,570 |
| $34,224 | $34,100 | $16 | 3,162,830 | |
| Find Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers Jobs | ||||
SOC: 39-3091 • 91% match | $32,692 | $32,390 | $16 | 2,127,190 |
SOC: 35-9031 • 94% match | $32,655 | $32,570 | $16 | 2,534,850 |
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Food Preparation Workers in Other States
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