Animal Trainers
What the pay figures show
- Virginia pays animal trainers the most, at $62,960. Unusually, it stays on top. Tax does not overturn it. Nor do local prices — it is still first at $49,538 once levelled out. That is rarer than it sounds. For most jobs the leader changes.
- Virginia leads for animal trainers at $62,960 and retains the position through both adjustments, finishing first at $49,538 in price-deflated terms. That robustness is the minority case: across the largest occupations, state income tax reorders the leader roughly a third of the time and price level does so more often still. Where the nominal leader survives both, the wage premium is large enough to absorb the state's own tax and price levels.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$39,990
People doing it
18,770
Highest paid
$62,960
VA
Best off, really
$49,538
VA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$29,600
Highest tenth
$75,490
Lowest, really
$27,483
MI
States with data
47
National average
$47,020
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
100.75%
VA, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Where you do this job matters enormously. The best state pays roughly twice what the worst does. Prices alone cannot explain a gap that size. Level everything out and the range still runs $27,483 to $49,538.
- Just 18,770 Americans work in this job. Small fields move around more from year to year.
- This job is not published everywhere — 47 jurisdictions have a figure, with $39,990 in the middle. Where one is missing, it was never released. Virginia tops the ones that are.
- Geographic dispersion in animal trainers is unusually wide: the top state's median is approximately double the bottom's, a spread that price differentials cannot account for. The real-terms range, after tax and price deflation, still runs $27,483 to $49,538 — so the variation reflects genuine differences in local labor markets rather than a nominal illusion.
- 18,770 are employed nationally in animal trainers — a small occupation, where the state spread above is more sensitive to sample composition than it would be in a large one.
- 47 jurisdictions carry a published median for animal trainers. ⚠️ Suppression is not random: it correlates with small state-level samples, so the reported set skews toward larger employers of this occupation.
Pay band: Animal Trainers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $29,600 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $39,990 |
| Top tenth earn over | $75,490 |
| This salary | $39,990 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Animal Trainers
The national median for this job
$39,990around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $29,600 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $39,990 |
| Top tenth | $75,490 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Animal Trainers, state by state
The national median for this job
47states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | South Carolina · $29,670 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Virginia · $62,960 |
| Spread | $33,290 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $36,370 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $37,427 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| VA | $62,960 | $49,909 | $49,538 |
| AL | $55,700 | $44,540 | $49,506 |
| MT | $44,680 | $36,737 | $40,709 |
| OR | $55,520 | $42,483 | $40,567 |
| IN | $45,270 | $37,248 | $40,407 |
| IA | $43,020 | $35,724 | $40,244 |
| GA | $45,250 | $36,879 | $38,138 |
| AR | $39,400 | $32,839 | $37,960 |
| ND | $38,970 | $33,492 | $37,814 |
| OK | $40,310 | $33,256 | $37,668 |
| IL | $45,830 | $36,881 | $37,308 |
| SD | $38,120 | $32,809 | $37,243 |
| ID | $40,770 | $33,631 | $36,786 |
| NY | $48,790 | $39,345 | $36,557 |
| WA | $46,420 | $39,478 | $36,365 |
| CO | $44,290 | $36,527 | $36,029 |
| CA | $49,060 | $40,464 | $35,942 |
| CT | $45,800 | $37,169 | $35,847 |
| NJ | $46,690 | $38,664 | $35,509 |
| MN | $41,690 | $34,266 | $34,817 |
| WV | $37,080 | $31,023 | $34,557 |
| ME | $40,760 | $33,477 | $34,478 |
| NC | $37,680 | $31,461 | $33,420 |
| WI | $37,140 | $31,044 | $33,346 |
| MS | $35,130 | $29,094 | $33,329 |
| UT | $38,580 | $31,462 | $33,117 |
| PA | $38,920 | $32,257 | $33,084 |
| TN | $35,320 | $30,560 | $33,032 |
| NM | $34,760 | $29,582 | $32,729 |
| NV | $36,760 | $31,717 | $32,704 |
| MA | $43,580 | $35,338 | $32,648 |
| NE | $34,900 | $29,338 | $32,462 |
| TX | $36,370 | $31,403 | $32,316 |
| KS | $34,720 | $28,429 | $31,600 |
| LA | $32,720 | $27,875 | $31,553 |
| KY | $34,030 | $28,450 | $31,447 |
| MO | $34,010 | $28,846 | $31,436 |
| NH | $38,030 | $32,737 | $31,076 |
| OH | $32,700 | $28,272 | $30,793 |
| FL | $36,870 | $31,805 | $30,744 |
| AK | $34,900 | $30,222 | $29,713 |
| MD | $37,430 | $30,841 | $29,665 |
| DC | $38,200 | $31,748 | $28,652 |
| DE | $33,810 | $28,037 | $28,248 |
| AZ | $33,330 | $28,530 | $28,218 |
| SC | $29,670 | $25,728 | $27,612 |
| MI | $30,820 | $25,885 | $27,483 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for animal trainers as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $39,990, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for animal trainers. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Virginia keeps the most at $49,909.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for animal trainers. Inside any state, a big city costs far more than a small town, so this is a fair way to compare states with each other and a poor way to price a specific move. The wage figures and the price figures are also from different years. At the bottom of the range sits Michigan, on $27,483.
- These are distribution medians for animal trainers, with a national value of $39,990. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
- The household modeled for animal trainers is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Virginia retains the most, $49,909. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for animal trainers rest on statewide regional price parities, which average over intra-state variation that is itself larger than much of the interstate variation. They support comparison between states and not the pricing of an individual relocation; Michigan anchors the distribution at $27,483. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.