Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians in Illinois

Wrenches, screwdrivers and gloves on an organized repair workbench.

May 2025 wages · tax year 2026

You keep

$62,394

after federal, FICA and Illinois tax

Tax takes

$19,286

23.6% of the whole

Worth, in national money

$63,116

Illinois costs less than average

One filer, standard deduction, no dependants and nothing paid in before tax — the same household the rest of this page uses, so the comparison holds. City and school-district income taxes are not included.

Median here

$81,680

Kept after tax

$62,394

Worth in national money

$63,116

State rank

19

of 50 states

What this pays, and what it is worth

  • Middling, nationally. Illinois pays this job around $81,680 at the midpoint, 19 of 50 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
  • Against other work in Illinois, this sits in the middle: 129 of 494 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
  • Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $81,680, tax leaves $62,394, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $63,116 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $88,650, since top earners drag the number up.
  • For aircraft mechanics and service technicians the Illinois median is $81,680, ranking 19 of 50 states reporting. Mid-band nominal positions are the ones most frequently reordered by the adjustments, because no large wage premium exists to absorb a state's tax or price level.
  • Aircraft mechanics and service technicians ranks 129 of 494 occupations in Illinois by median pay, in the middle bands. Within-state and national positions are separate measurements and a job commonly sits in different quartiles on each.
  • Because Illinois sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for aircraft mechanics and service technicians — median $81,680 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $62,394 retained, $63,116 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $88,650 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.

Compare this career across states

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Pay band: Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians

The state median for this job

50thpercentile, roughly
Lowest tenth earn under$46,460
Half earn under$81,680
Top tenth earn over$130,950
This salary$81,680

Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.

The same pay, somewhere else

The state median for this job

Compare with
+$3,898take-home per year in Texas
Take-home in Illinois$62,394
Take-home in Texas$66,292
Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity+$5,103

State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.

What you would need there

The state median for this job

Moving to
$0now · $81,680$74,631
$74,631in Texas, for the same life
To match take-home only$76,139
You could take a cut of−$7,049
Prices in Texas97 vs 99

State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.

Sources and assumptions
  • Treat $81,680 as a midpoint for Illinois, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $46,460 and the ninetieth is $130,950 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
  • One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Illinois's $62,394, worked from $81,680. That is on purpose. It lets states be compared with each other, not with each other's family circumstances. Local city taxes are left out. Locally this work ranks 129 of 494.
  • The wage data and the price data come from different years. That is how each is published. The price adjustment behind $63,116 uses one figure for the whole of Illinois. A city and a rural county there can differ by more than two states do. Out of 494 occupations the state publishes, this one sits at 129.
  • The Illinois median of $81,680 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $46,460 to $130,950. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
  • The Illinois take-home of $62,394, on $81,680 for work ranking 129 of 494 locally, models the simplest household deliberately: holding it constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful. It also means the absolute figure overstates liability for most real filers, and municipal income taxes are outside the model entirely. The occupation ranks 129 of 494 in the state.
  • Wage and price series carry different reference periods, each published on its own schedule. The real-terms figure of $63,116, worked from $81,680, deflates by a statewide parity that conceals substantial intra-state variation, concentrated in housing — so it supports comparison between states rather than the pricing of a move to a particular Illinois address, on work sitting at 129 of 494 locally.

Questions people ask

Is this the average pay for the job?

Half earn more than this and half earn less. The average sits at $88,650 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.

Why is the pay range for this job so wide?

One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $46,460, the highest tenth $130,950, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.

What does this pay actually buy where I live?

More than the figure suggests. Prices in Illinois sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $63,116 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.

Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?

Three of them are federal and one is not. After income tax, Social Security, Medicare and Illinois's own levy, $62,394 remains.

Why is this job missing from some states?

Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 50 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.

How does the published median differ from the mean for this occupation?

The median is the midpoint of the distribution; the mean for this occupation in Illinois is $88,650. Wage distributions are right-skewed, so the mean exceeds the median wherever a minority earn substantially more. BLS publishes both because substituting one for the other misstates a typical worker's pay.

What drives the percentile dispersion in this occupation?

Dispersion between the tenth percentile ($46,460) and the ninetieth ($130,950) exceeds the family median dispersion. SOC codes aggregate roles differing in seniority, industry and specialisation, and BLS does not disaggregate below the detailed occupation level, so within-title variance is not separable from the published series.

What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?

Illinois's regional price parity is at or below the national average, so nominal wages understate purchasing power. Take-home deflated by the state price level is $63,116 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.

What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?

Take-home of $62,394 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Illinois income tax for a single filer with no adjustments. The state layer is levied in addition to the federal one; only its rate and base differ between states.

Why does this occupation lack published estimates in every state?

BLS suppresses estimates failing disclosure or reliability criteria. This occupation has published state-level estimates in 50 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.