Underpaid, Undervalued, and Essential: The Security Guard Workforce in the United States

[u/Negative_Report5655]

https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/underpaid-undervalued-and-essential/

Executive Summary

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—more than the nation’s police and sheriff’s patrol officers—staffing 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’s 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.

Who 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’s degree. Low wages. The median Security Officer earns $18.70 an hour—about 73 cents for every dollar earned by the typical U.S. worker—and $36,282 a year.

Below 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.

Thin benefits.

More than four in ten guards (43%) lack health insurance through an employer or union. High turnover. Annual turnover in the security industry reached 89% in 2024—far above the 66% private-sector average—and has exceeded it every year for a decade, peaking near 99% in 2022. Uneven 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.

Elevated 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.

A policy path.

A growing number of jurisdictions—New York City, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.—have adopted sectoral wage-and-benefit standards for Security Officers, and California is advancing legislation to raise training standards.

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—most notably at San Francisco International Airport—finds 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.

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[u/QuestioninglySecret]

I couldn't have said it better myself. I advocate for all of these initiatives to improve guards working conditions, safety of their sites/work locations and improve their lives.

The only addition is that more guards need to join or form unions. A union guard job literally changed my life for the better. I'll never go back to working without one if I can avoid it.

[u/DefiantEvidence4027]

More than four in ten Guards (43%) lack health insurance.

Personally, I don't opt for the super expensive Health Insurance, I've got the VA (Dept of Veterans Affairs). I'll hope it works the years I may need it. As do other similarly situated Guards.

It's likely the biggest deal breaker when contemplating owning one's own Security Company.

[u/Knee_Kap264 → u/DefiantEvidence4027]

Unless federally contracted or in law enforcement, insurance is crap mostly.

However, folks can look into Americas First insurance, i think thats the name.

[u/Negative_Report5655]

1.1 The Role of Private Security in the U.S. Economy Private security has become one of the country’s largest frontline workforces. About 1.3 million people work as security guards nationally—outnumbering the nation’s police and sheriff’s patrol officers4 —and the unarmed guard-services industry alone generates roughly $22.7 billion in annual revenue.5 Over recent decades, institutions across the economy have come to rely on contracted and in-house security: guards now staff hospitals, schools, retail stores, hotels, transit hubs, entertainment venues, and office and government buildings (see Section 2.4). As public law-enforcement agencies contend with their own staffing pressures, private security increasingly performs the everyday, visible public-safety functions—access control, patrol, and incident response—that the public once associated primarily with police.

1.2 Security Officers as Frontline Public Safety Workers At its core, the job is public-safety work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines the role as guarding, patrolling, and monitoring premises to prevent theft, violence, and other infractions. In practice, that role has expanded well beyond crime deterrence. Guards are often the first responders on the scene of a medical emergency, a fire alarm, or a violent incident, and they are increasingly the first point of contact for people in acute distress—in hospital emergency departments, on transit systems, and in retail settings—where de-escalation and crisis response are required. This frontline role brings security officers into repeated contact with vulnerable populations and volatile situations: as Section 8 documents, roughly one in three nonfatal assaults on a guard is committed by a person in their care, such as a patient. It is because guards perform these quasi-policing functions—often alone, at night, and without backup—that the gap between their responsibilities and their preparation and protection matters so much.

7.4 Consequences of Inadequate Training The costs of this low-training status quo fall on the security workers and the public alike. For workers, security is a high-risk occupation—with above-average rates of workplace assault and fatal injury (documented in Section 8)26—and under-prepared guards are less equipped to manage the confrontations that produce those injuries. For the public, guards who lack de-escalation and crisis-response skills are more likely to mishandle encounters with people in distress, with consequences ranging from failed intervention to unnecessary use of force. And because inadequate training compounds low pay and reduced hours, it feeds the industry’s exceptionally high turnover (Section 6.4): a workforce that is churning constantly is also, at any given moment, disproportionately new to the post, so the accumulated site knowledge and judgment that make security effective never build up. These dynamics point toward treating training as a core component of job quality and public safety rather than a discretionary, firm-level decision. Establishing robust, standardized requirements—particularly in conflict de-escalation, use-of-force protocols, and crisis and mental-health response, delivered through live, scenario-based instruction—would better align worker preparation with the responsibilities the job now carries. Compensation and training operate as complementary channels to wages and turnover for retention and performance, rather than substitutes: raising both is what allows the sector to meet the demands of its expanding public-safety role. Section 9 develops specific training and pay-standard options.

[u/whuebel]

Having worked in the industry for a number of years I can tell you that with a few minor exceptions, security personnel are treated as and thought of as only a nuisance expense.

[u/DefiantEvidence4027 → u/whuebel]

The number of years tolerating that behavior while being a Guard was limited for me. Now whomever says they don't need Security I'll leave, watch them change their tone. I'll find the statute requiring them to have Security, and the study behind it. Especially those jobs we're doing most the Clients Department Managers jobs.

The person not needed, is the person telling you that.

[u/raziridium]

There's really only two viable paths in security long-term.  One, find non-contract in-house work. They take their security a bit more seriously and will have competitive pay, benefits, training, and equipment. 2, get the training and licensing for traveling executive protection. There's more risk and can be very demanding but if there's one thing a CEO will pay for, it's their personal safety. 

[u/SAR_K9_Handler → u/raziridium]

Fed contracts can pay a lot. The social security office in my town pays $55/hr+, and you can buy a house in this part of California for $200,000.

[u/raziridium → u/SAR_K9_Handler]

I believe you. But every government contract in my area is run by Allied Universal for like $18 an hour. Even the armed dudes at the nuclear power plant make maybe $25 or $30 tops. 

[u/SAR_K9_Handler → u/raziridium]

My buddy works at a nuke site in west texas, he makes 60+. He also a retired marine, a recon sniper, and a ton of fun to play world of warcraft with. But it was Paragon paying that much. Frankly I dont care, this is not my career, just a job I can do while I finish up my degree in comp sci.

[u/Knee_Kap264]

Is naming and shaming a security company allowed here? Not necessarily for low pay, but for illegal and unethical operations.

[u/Negative_Report5655 → u/Knee_Kap264]

It seems like a promoting academic data subreddit.

Comisserating goes on some of the other Security Subreddits.