Interior Painter

• A survey of ten interior painter jobs in the United States by the website Salary Expert states that the salary range for an interior painter can be between $28,300 and $53,700, as of December 2010. The $28,300 position was in Dallas, and the $53,700 job was in Chicago.
  
  

Skills

• The more skills painting an interior that a painter has, the more money he can make. For example, brushing and rolling are basic to most painters. However, a skilled sprayer who can spray lacquers and oil finishes may make a higher salary than a beginning painter without that skill. A faux finisher can also get more money.
  
  

Painters in General

• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean average salary for a painter (both interior and exterior) in the residential building industry is about $33,200. The average annual salary of a painter in the building finishing contractor industry isa little higher at about $36,400. This data is current as of May 2009.
  
  

States and Cities

• Illinois is the highest-paying state for painters in general. The annual average salary there is $49,960. If a painter lives in Nevada, the mean annual salary is $47,850, and in Alaska, it is $46,140. The highest-paying metropolitan area for painters is Lawrence-Methuen-Salem, Massachusetts-New Hampshire, where painters earn about $71,440 on average each year. Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, painters earn about $55,800 per year, and those in the Nassau-Suffolk, New York, region can bring in about $58,650 each year.