Animal Trainers in Tennessee
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$30,560
after federal, FICA and Tennessee tax
Tax takes
$4,760
13.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$33,032
Tennessee costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Tennessee — roughly, since only five points along the band are published.
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
$35,320
Kept after tax
$30,560
Worth in national money
$33,032
State rank
34
of 47 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. Tennessee pays animal trainers a middle wage of $35,320, 34 of 47 states and about 11.68% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Within Tennessee this is lower-paid work. Of 491 occupations the state publishes figures for, animal trainers ranks 440. That is the bottom quarter locally, whatever the national comparison says.
- Here is where Tennessee does better than its wage suggests. From a median of $35,320 you keep $30,560, and because things cost less here than the national average, that behaves like $33,032 would elsewhere. The average is higher, $38,750, because the best-paid pull it up.
- Tennessee's $35,320 median for animal trainers places it 34 of 47 states, about 11.68% below national. Because both the tax and price adjustments tend to favor lower-nominal states, this ranking is the least stable of the three reported here.
- Against every occupation Tennessee reports, animal trainers ranks 440 of 491, in the lowest quartile of the state's distribution. That position is set by the local labor market and is independent of how the state compares nationally for this work.
- After federal, FICA and Tennessee income tax, retained pay for animal trainers on $35,320 is $30,560. Deflating by the state's price level — below the national average — gives $33,032 in national-average terms. ⚠️ That figure is purchasing power, not a wage, and nobody is paid it; it is what the take-home buys. The mean of $38,750 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.
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Pay band: Animal Trainers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $27,650 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $35,320 |
| Top tenth earn over | $56,450 |
| This salary | $35,320 |
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
| Take-home in Tennessee | $30,560 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $30,560 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$1,584 |
The raise and the real gain point in opposite directions here.
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
| To match take-home only | $35,320 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$1,916 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 93 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $35,320 as a midpoint for Tennessee, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $27,650 and the ninetieth is $56,450 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $30,560 take-home in Tennessee comes from $35,320. It is the no-frills case: single filer, standard deduction, nothing set aside before tax. Real circumstances almost always reduce the tax. City and school-district taxes are not counted at all. Locally the work ranks 440 of 491.
- Two cautions on $33,032, the adjusted value of that $35,320 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Tennessee. No actual address matches that. The wage figures and price figures are also from different years. Each is published on its own timetable. This work sits at 440 of 491 locally.
- The Tennessee median of $35,320 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $27,650 to $56,450. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- Retained pay of $30,560, from $35,320, assumes a single Tennessee filer with the standard deduction and no elective deferrals. Pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions, dependants and itemized deductions all reduce it further; local income taxes, excluded here, would increase it in the states that levy them. This occupation ranks 440 of 491 locally, and the state ranks 34 of 47 for it.
- This $33,032 adjusted figure, worked from $35,320, rests on a state-level price parity averaging over within-state dispersion larger than much of the between-state dispersion. Wage and price vintages differ by publication schedule. The result is directionally sound and not address-specific, for work at 440 of 491 in the state. The occupation ranks 440 of 491 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 $38,750 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?
Because one job title covers very different work. The bottom tenth here earn $27,650 and the top tenth $56,450 — experience, employer and specialism separate them, and a single figure hides all three.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Tennessee sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $33,032 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $30,560 of this wage reaches your account, because Tennessee takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
Why is this job missing from some states?
A blank is a suppression, not a zero. 47 states have a published figure for this work; the others had too few responses to release one.
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 Tennessee is $38,750. 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 ($27,650) and the ninetieth ($56,450) 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?
Tennessee'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 $33,032 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Tennessee levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $30,560 reflects the federal layer and FICA alone. Federal income tax and FICA are unchanged; states without a wage income tax generally recover revenue through consumption and property bases instead.
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 47 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.