A salary is a gross number. What reaches you is smaller, and what it buys where you live is different again. Those two adjustments — tax and prices — are well known individually. Applied together, across every state and a wide spread of jobs, they reorder the league tables that people actually use when they decide where to work.
- 20 of 34jobs where the highest-paying state is not the best state to do them
- 1,731figures: 34 occupations across 51 jurisdictions
- 50%median gap between the best and worst state, for the same job
What we did
Three public datasets and one calculator:
- The median annual wage for each occupation in each state, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2025 estimates).
- Federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and state income tax for 2026, calculated with the same engine that runs our paycheck calculator, for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependents.
- The Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parity for each state in 2024 — the price level where the national average is 100.
Take-home pay divided by the price level gives the adjusted figure: what the money is worth where it is spent. Everything is national-average purchasing power, so the numbers are directly comparable across states. The full method, and everything it cannot account for, is on the methodology page.
The headline: the best-paying state usually is not the best state
In 20 of the 34 occupations, the state with the highest median wage is not the state where a worker in that job ends up with the most spending power. That is 59% of the jobs we looked at.
Registered nursing is the clearest case. California pays the highest median wage in the country at $140,270. Washington pays $124,200, some $16,070 less on paper. But Washington has no state income tax and lower prices, so a nurse there is left with $89,855 of national-average purchasing power against $88,819 in California. The lower salary wins by $1,036 a year.
Software developers repeat the pattern at a larger scale: California's $174,410 median is the highest in the country, and it ranks 4th once tax and prices are applied, behind Washington.
| Job | Highest salary | Best after tax and prices | What the move is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accountant or auditor | District of Columbia | District of Columbia | — |
| Administrative assistant | District of Columbia | North Dakota | $1,778 |
| Auto mechanic | District of Columbia | North Dakota | $5,019 |
| Chef or head cook | Rhode Island | North Dakota | $7,525 |
| Childcare worker | District of Columbia | District of Columbia | — |
| Clinical laboratory technician | New York | New York | — |
| Customer service representative | Washington | Iowa | $3,602 |
| Dental hygienist | District of Columbia | Alaska | $11,930 |
| Electrician | Oregon | Illinois | $4,388 |
| Elementary school teacher | Washington | Washington | — |
| Fast food worker | California | California | — |
| Firefighter | New York | Washington | $950 |
| General manager | New Jersey | South Dakota | $7,425 |
| HR specialist | District of Columbia | District of Columbia | — |
| High school teacher | Washington | Washington | — |
| Janitor or cleaner | Massachusetts | North Dakota | $1,802 |
| Lawyer | New York | New York | — |
| Maintenance worker | District of Columbia | Alaska | $5,615 |
| Medical and health services manager | New York | South Dakota | $514 |
| Medical assistant | Washington | Washington | — |
| Middle school teacher | Washington | Washington | — |
| Nursing assistant | Oregon | North Dakota | $6,399 |
| Pharmacist | Alaska | South Dakota | $3,249 |
| Pharmacy technician | Washington | Washington | — |
| Plumber | District of Columbia | Illinois | $6,786 |
| Police officer | California | California | — |
| Public relations specialist | District of Columbia | District of Columbia | — |
| Registered nurse | California | Washington | $1,036 |
| Retail salesperson | Washington | North Dakota | $3,263 |
| Social and human service assistant | District of Columbia | North Dakota | $979 |
| Software developer | California | Washington | $9,871 |
| Truck driver | Alaska | North Dakota | $661 |
| Warehouse stocker | Washington | Wyoming | $1,123 |
| Welder | Alaska | Alaska | — |
Rows where the two states differ are marked. The last column is how much more a year you keep, in real terms, by working in the second state rather than the highest-paying one.
The states that gain, and the states that lose
Averaged across all 34 jobs, these are the states that move furthest between the raw wage ranking and the adjusted one.
| State | Places |
|---|---|
| Iowa | +18.0 |
| South Dakota | +17.1 |
| North Dakota | +16.9 |
| Tennessee | +15.1 |
| Wyoming | +12.3 |
| State | Places |
|---|---|
| Hawaii | −22.8 |
| Oregon | −16.9 |
| New Jersey | −16.7 |
| Maryland | −16.2 |
| New York | −15.4 |
District of Columbia is the most striking. It has the highest median wage in 10 of the 34 occupations — more than any other jurisdiction — and it still loses an average of 0.0 places once tax and prices are applied. Iowa, the Dakotas and Tennessee gain because they combine low prices with either no income tax or a low flat one.
Washington and North Dakota top the adjusted table most often, 8 occupations each. The states that come last most often are Alabama (4), Hawaii (4), Florida (3), Louisiana (3).
What having no income tax is worth
Nine states levy no tax on wage income: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. They are 18% of the 51 jurisdictions, but they hold 31% of the top-ten places in the adjusted rankings. That is a real effect and it is not a small one. It is also not the whole story: Florida has no income tax and finishes last in 3 of the 34 jobs, because its prices absorb more than the tax saving returns.
How big the gap gets
For the median job in this index, the best state leaves you 50% better off than the worst — for identical work. The narrowest spread is Warehouse stocker at 27%, which makes sense: that work is priced close to the local wage floor everywhere. The widest is Firefighter at 120%, where the states differ so much in how the job is staffed that the medians are not really describing the same job. We have left it in and flagged it rather than quietly dropping it.
Every job in the index
Use the data
The complete dataset is available as a CSV: 1,731 rows, one per occupation and state, with the gross wage, the take-home figure, the state income tax, the price level and the adjusted result.
It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Use it, chart it, write about it, build on it — commercially or not — as long as you credit it. If you are citing it:
Phillips, M. (2026). The Take-Home Index 2026. Calculator Dad. https://calculatordad.com/research/take-home-index
Journalists and researchers are welcome to ask for a cut of the data, a state-level breakdown or a figure checked before publication: contact us.
What this is not
These are state medians, not offers. Half the people doing each job in each state earn less than the figure shown, and half earn more. Prices vary inside a state far more than the state average suggests: Manhattan and Buffalo share one price level here, and they should not. The tax calculation assumes a single filer with no dependents, no pre-tax deductions and no local income tax, which is the cleanest comparison but nobody's actual situation. Run your own numbers in the paycheck calculator, and read the methodology before quoting any of it.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 state estimates. Annual median wage by occupation and state.
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities by state, 2024. The price level of each state, where the national average is 100.
- Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare for 2026, and the income tax rules of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as listed on our sources page and applied by the paycheck calculator. The method is set out in full on the methodology page.