The average annual salary for licensed funeral home owners and licensed non-owners in New Jersey dipped in 2023, after record gains the previous year, settling in at levels more in line with previous reports, according to the Thanexus 2023 Year in Review.
The 2023 Year in Review features information gathered by Thanexus, the first funeral practice management cooperative in the country. The report details average yearly compensation for employees of shareholders for whom Thanexus provides payroll and benefits services.
According to the report, based on information gathered in the spring of 2024, licensed funeral home owners reported an average annual salary of $133,652 in 2023, a decrease from the $145,007 reported in 2022. The 2023 number, however, is still ahead of the average of $132,247 reported for 2021.
Licensed non-owners also saw a decrease in their average salary, from $92,634 in 2022 to $87,967 in 2023. The 2021 average for licensed non-owners was $88,205. Newly licensed non-owners did see a slight increase in average salary, from $68,385 in 2022 to $69,765 in 2023.
Clerical and administrative staff, funeral attendants and interns all saw their hourly compensation rate increase in 2023. Clerical and administrative staff pay increased from $24.23 per hour in 2022 to $24.32 in 2023. Funeral attendants’ pay rose from $21.58 to $24.03 per hour, and interns increased from $20.98 to $21.38.
Thanexus uses actual W-2 wage data to calculate average and median salaries for several categories of employees, making it one of the most accurate barometers of funeral home employee compensation available. In 2023, Thanexus shared employment with and administered benefits for the 856 employees of its 70 shareholders in 124 registered mortuaries across 107 worksites, for a combined annual payroll of $35.5 million. A total of 285 of those workers are licensed funeral directors.
New Jersey’s licensed funeral directors enjoyed wages that were well above the national average wage for morticians, undertakers and funeral arrangers in May 2023, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationally, this group of funeral professionals makes an average wage of $58,020, the BLS report states. State-level statistics show that the funeral professionals group made an average wage of $66,270, according to the BLS.
Thanexus declared $332,228 in patronage dividends for 2023. Of that figure, $249,171 will be returned to shareholders in cash distributions with the remaining $87,057 allocated as member equity. Over the past 23 years, there has been more than $3 million in patronage dividends declared, of which more than $1.8 million was returned to shareholders in cash distributions.
The Thanexus retirement plan posted strong gains in 2023, ending the year with $120 million in total plan assets for its 481 participants. The average account balance for a plan participant in the 40-59 age group was $326,061. The average weighted expense ratio of the retirement plan is .3 percent, well below the national average, according to the Investment Company Institute.
To view the details of how Thanexus provides invaluable services to its shareholders, find the 2023 Thanexus State of the Industry report here.
Interested in learning more about the Thanexus advantage?
Contact Chris Murphy at 888.309.5137 for a confidential discussion about how Thanexus can help your funeral home with its benefit offerings and staff oversight.