Where Video Editors Earn the Most and Where the Paycheck Goes Furthest

Where Video Editors Earn the Most and Where the Paycheck Goes Furthest

Mark Santos November 10, 2026

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Sooner or later every editor asks what the same job would pay somewhere else. A remote staff role comes up at a company in another state, or you are pricing freelance work and want to know what staff editors near your clients earn. The Bureau of Labor Statistics answers part of that every year. The part it leaves out is what the money buys where you live.

I run a video studio, and we wanted the whole answer, so we put the BLS pay figures for film and video editors next to the Bureau of Economic Analysis's regional price parities, which compare prices in each state with the national average. The full state table, the data file and our method are on our research page. Here is what it shows.

New York pays the most, before and after prices In May 2025, BLS published pay estimates for film and video editors in 43 states and territories, in its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. The highest median was in New York, at $103,440 a year, followed by the District of Columbia ($98,830), Massachusetts ($92,130) and California ($88,490). The lowest published medians were in Alaska ($38,800) and South Dakota ($39,090).

New York is also expensive. So we divided each state's median by its regional price parity, where the national average is 100. That puts every state's pay in national prices: roughly what the median would buy in an average-priced part of the country. Among the 21 states with 300 or more employed editors, New York still leads, at $95,848. The District of Columbia ($89,926) and Massachusetts ($87,115) stay second and third.

The top of the table survives the adjustment. The middle of it doesn't.

Median pay in the 10 best-paid states with 300 or more editors, as published and in national prices

California pays less than its reputation once prices count California's median, $88,490, is the fourth highest in the country, but California also has the highest price parity in the table, 110.72. In national prices its median is $79,922, behind Colorado ($82,114) and Connecticut ($80,639), whose editors earn less on paper.

The same arithmetic moves cheaper states up. Utah's median ($76,240) is below New Jersey's ($82,890), but in national prices Utah comes out ahead, $77,116 to $76,182. Washington's $66,870 median beats Texas's $61,220, yet in national prices Texas edges ahead, $63,076 to $62,488.

Among the 21 states, Missouri climbs the most, from 17th to 12th, at $63,810 in national prices. Washington falls from 11th to 16th, and Florida from 14th to 19th. Florida has the third-largest editor workforce in the country, but its $60,430 median is $58,435 in national prices, ahead of only Indiana and Arizona among the 21.

Most staff editing jobs are in three states Pay matters less where there are few jobs. California employs 8,110 film and video editors and New York 3,710. With Florida (1,490), they hold 56.3% of the editors in the states BLS reports. Texas is the only other state above 1,000, at 1,040.

BLS also publishes a location quotient, which compares a state's share of editors in its workforce with the national share. Editors are 2.7 times as concentrated in California's workforce as in the nation's, and 2.33 times in New York's. The District of Columbia's quotient, 3.18, is the highest in the table, though it comes from only 370 editors.

Los Angeles has the jobs; San Francisco and New York have the pay The metro figures sharpen the picture. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim has 6,010 film and video editors at a median $83,210, the largest editing workforce of any metro area. New York-Newark-Jersey City follows with 3,430 at $104,590. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont is much smaller, at 740 editors, but its median, $109,930, is the highest of the 12 metros with the most editors.

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria (560 editors, $91,750) and Boston-Cambridge-Newton (430, $88,910) come next. Florida's two largest editing markets, Orlando (390 editors, $60,470) and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach (360, $61,950), are about the size of Dallas-Fort Worth (350, $65,000) and Nashville (300, $59,280). We did not adjust metro pay for prices, so read these as paychecks, not buying power.

The 12 metro areas with the most film and video editors, with each one's median pay

What to do with these numbers

Weighing a move? Compare states in national prices, not as published. A higher median in an expensive state can buy less than a lower one somewhere cheaper, as Washington and Texas show.

Negotiating a remote staff job? Look up the median where the company is based as well as where you live. Both are in the BLS tables, and they can be far apart: $103,440 in New York against $60,430 in Florida.

Freelance? Use these as context, not a rate card. They are employee salaries, and a freelance rate also has to cover equipment, software and the unpaid days between jobs, which a salary doesn't.

Hiring? The same tables tell you what a staff editor earns in the market you are hiring from, and the metro figures are closer to that market than the state ones.

What these numbers don't show The biggest gap is freelancers. The BLS wage survey counts employees, not the self-employed, and a large part of the editing workforce works for itself.

Small states are noisy. Where few editors are employed, a median can move a lot between surveys. Alabama's 120 editors earn a median $74,410, which in national prices ($83,773) would put Alabama ahead of Colorado, and that is why we ranked only states with 300 or more editors. BLS also withholds estimates that don't meet its publication standards, so some states are missing, and Georgia and Virginia have pay figures but no published editor count.

The years differ

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