{"id":778013,"date":"2026-07-22T14:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/778013\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T14:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:39:08","slug":"underpaid-undervalued-and-essential-the-security-guard-workforce-in-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/778013\/","title":{"rendered":"Underpaid, Undervalued, and Essential: The Security Guard Workforce in the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"

View our\u00a0Security Guards: Undervalued and Underpaid<\/a> series webpage for state and metropolitan factsheets on working conditions in the private-sector security industry.<\/p>\n

Executive Summary<\/p>\n

Security officers are among the largest frontline workforces in the United States and among the least protected. About 1.3 million people work as security guards\u2014more than the nation\u2019s police and sheriff\u2019s patrol officers\u2014staffing the hospitals, schools, transit systems, stores, and office buildings where the public expects a visible security presence. During the COVID-19 pandemic they were designated essential critical infrastructure workers, and their responsibilities have expanded to include de-escalating conflicts, managing emergencies, and responding to mental-health crises. Yet their wages, benefits, training, and workplace protections do not reflect that role. This report synthesizes national data with the UC Berkeley Labor Center\u2019s series of state and metropolitan factsheets to profile the security guard workforce and to show why improving job quality in this sector is a matter both of economic justice and of public safety.<\/p>\n

Key Findings<\/p>\n

Size and structure. About 1.3 million people work as security officers nationally. Employment is projected to hold roughly flat through 2034, yet the industry generates some 162,300 openings a year\u2014almost all to replace workers who leave. About 60% of guards work for contract security firms rather than the establishments they protect.
\nWho they are. The workforce is predominantly male (76%) and majority workers of color (61%), with Black workers making up nearly one in three (31%). The median age is 40, and roughly six in seven guards have no bachelor\u2019s degree.
\nLow wages. The median security officer earns $18.70 an hour\u2014about 73 cents for every dollar earned by the typical U.S. worker\u2014and $36,282 a year.
\nBelow a living wage. Seventy-one percent of security officers earn less than the MIT living wage for a single adult, and 41% are low-wage by the standard two-thirds-of-median benchmark.
\nThin benefits. More than four in ten guards (43%) lack health insurance through an employer or union.
\nHigh turnover. Annual turnover in the security industry reached 89% in 2024\u2014far above the 66% private-sector average\u2014and has exceeded it every year for a decade, peaking near 99% in 2022.
\nUneven training. There is no federal training standard. Only about half of states set a minimum number of training hours for unarmed guards, ranging from 4 to 48, and few require the de-escalation and crisis-response training the job increasingly demands.
\nElevated safety risk. Security guards die on the job at more than twice the rate of the average worker, and nearly two-thirds of their fatal injuries result from assaults and other violent acts.
\nA policy path. A growing number of jurisdictions\u2014New York City, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.\u2014have adopted sectoral wage-and-benefit standards for security officers, and California is advancing legislation to raise training standards.<\/p>\n

The poor job quality in the security industry is not only a problem for workers; it is a public-safety problem as well. Research on security work\u2014most notably at San Francisco International Airport\u2014finds that higher pay and lower turnover improve the quality and reliability of security services, while constant churn erodes the experience and readiness on which effective security depends. The policy tools to change this are increasingly well established: sectoral pay-and-benefit standards that take labor costs out of low-bid competition, meaningful and standardized training, responsible contracting, and career pathways that make security work a stable occupation. Improving job quality in this sector advances worker well-being and public safety together.<\/p>\n

Download the report.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"View our\u00a0Security Guards: Undervalued and Underpaid series webpage for state and metropolitan factsheets on working conditions in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-778013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}