This paper examines the levels and trends of the wage and compensation premiums earned by manufacturing workers—a pay “bonus” workers enjoy if they work in manufacturing relative to comparable private-sector workers who do not work in manufacturing. Contrary to some claims, there is a sizable manufacturing compensation premium of 13.0 percent in the 2010s. At the same time, there has been severe pressure on manufacturing firms to reduce pay and they have done so by reducing wages and by using staffing services firms as intermediaries. The result is that the compensation premium in manufacturing is substantially lower in recent years than it was in the 1980s.