---
title: "Postal Service Mail Carrier"
description: "Sort and deliver mail for the United States Postal Service (USPS). Deliver mail on established route by vehicle or on foot. Includes postal service mail…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-mail-carrier"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Postal Service Mail Carrier

**Category:** Office and Administrative Support · **SOC code:** 43-5052 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 43-5052.00

Sort and deliver mail for the United States Postal Service (USPS). Deliver mail on established route by vehicle or on foot. Includes postal service mail carriers employed by USPS contractors.

Also advertised as: City Carrier; City Carrier Assistant (CCA); City Letter Carrier; City Mail Carrier; Letter Carrier; Mail Carrier; Rural Carrier; Rural Carrier Associate (RCA).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $60,550 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $29.11/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $42,390 to $81,040, with the middle half between $48,940 and $81,000
- **Total US employment:** 328,820
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -3.5% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 20,600 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 50/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 328,820 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $42,390 |
| 25th | $48,940 |
| 50th (median) | $60,550 |
| 75th | $81,000 |
| 90th | $81,040 |
| Mean (average) | $62,540 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $64,250 | $58,462 | 930 |
| RI | $63,610 | $62,192 | 1,220 |
| AZ | $62,390 | $61,970 | 5,300 |
| CA | $62,090 | $56,078 | 32,320 |
| IL | $62,070 | $62,096 | 14,730 |
| MD | $62,070 | $59,137 | 6,420 |
| MA | $62,070 | $58,691 | 7,630 |
| NV | $62,070 | $62,083 | 2,530 |
| NY | $62,070 | $57,514 | 20,580 |
| VA | $62,070 | $61,392 | 7,900 |
| CT | $61,130 | $59,000 | 4,510 |
| FL | $61,130 | $59,112 | 20,810 |
| NJ | $61,130 | $56,183 | 10,160 |
| OH | $61,130 | $65,891 | 12,680 |
| SD | $60,760 | $68,589 | 850 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-mail-carrier/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/postal-service-mail-carrier.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 319,400 in the 2024–2034 base year to 308,100 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 11,300 jobs, or -3.5%. Declining: -3.5% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 20,600 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** No formal educational credential (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma | 78.2% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 14.6% |
| Some College Courses | 7.2% |

## What the work involves

- Scan labels on letters or parcels to confirm receipt.
- Hold mail for customers who are away from delivery locations.
- Leave notices telling patrons where to collect mail that could not be delivered.
- Report any unusual circumstances concerning mail delivery, including the condition of street letter boxes.
- Provide customers with change of address cards and other forms.
- Sign for cash-on-delivery and registered mail before leaving the post office.
- Return to the post office with mail collected from homes, businesses, and public mailboxes.
- Deliver mail to residences and business establishments along specified routes by walking or driving, using a combination of satchels, carts, cars, and small trucks.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 1.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Information Ordering — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Category Flexibility — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.27 |
| R — Realistic | 3.56 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.91 |
| S — Social | 2.69 |
| I — Investigative | 1.00 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 85.1 |
| ISFJ | 84.4 |
| ISTJ | 81.1 |
| ESFJ | 79.6 |
| ESTP | 53.3 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ISFJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Postal Service Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-clerk) — median $62,130
- [Courier and Messenger](https://nuecareer.com/careers/courier-and-messenger) — median $39,200
- [Mail Clerk and Mail Machine Operator, Except Postal Service](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mail-clerk-and-mail-machine-operator) — median $39,280
- [Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/shipping-receiving-and-inventory-clerk) — median $45,260
- [Cargo and Freight Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cargo-and-freight-agent) — median $52,260
- [Postal Service Mail Sorter, Processor, and Processing Machine Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-mail-sorter-processor-and-processing-machine-operator) — median $58,470
- [Postmaster](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postmaster) — median $96,660
- [Light Truck Driver](https://nuecareer.com/careers/light-truck-driver) — median $44,860
- [Freight Forwarder](https://nuecareer.com/careers/freight-forwarder) — median $52,260
- [Dispatcher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dispatcher) — median $50,340

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/postal-service-mail-carrier