Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary in Missouri
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$59,635
after federal, FICA and Missouri tax
Tax takes
$16,325
21.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$64,989
Missouri costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Missouri — 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
$75,960
Kept after tax
$59,635
Worth in national money
$64,989
State rank
27
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Missouri pays this job around $75,960 at the midpoint, 27 of 49 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Locally, this pays well. Among 488 occupations Missouri reports, this job comes in at 122 — comfortably in the upper quarter.
- Cheaper living works in this state's favor. From $75,960 you keep $59,635 after tax, and local prices stretch that to the equivalent of $64,989 at national prices. Averages run higher here, $82,760, since top earners drag the number up.
- For art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary the Missouri median is $75,960, ranking 27 of 49 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.
- Art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary ranks 122 of 488 occupations by median in Missouri, in the top quartile. Within-state position is largely independent of national position, so this holds regardless of how the state compares to others for the same work.
- Retained pay in Missouri is $59,635 after the full tax stack, from $75,960. Because the state's price level runs below the national average, the price-adjusted equivalent is $64,989 — a real-terms figure describing purchasing power rather than compensation, and not a number that appears on any pay stub. Mean pay of $82,760 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $46,730 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $75,960 |
| Top tenth earn over | $126,520 |
| This salary | $75,960 |
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 Missouri | $59,635 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $62,268 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$911 |
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 | $72,218 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$1,258 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 92 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle, not an offer. Half of art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary in Missouri earn under $75,960 and half over. The published range runs $46,730 at the tenth percentile to $126,520 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Missouri's $59,635, worked from $75,960. 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 122 of 488.
- Two cautions on $64,989, the adjusted value of that $75,960 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Missouri. 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 122 of 488 locally.
- Figures are distribution medians for art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary in Missouri, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $46,730 to $126,520; within-state dispersion of that width routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, so tenure, employer and metropolitan area predict an individual's pay better than geography does.
- The Missouri take-home of $59,635, on $75,960 for work ranking 122 of 488 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 122 of 488 in the state.
- This $64,989 adjusted figure, worked from $75,960, 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 122 of 488 in the state. The occupation ranks 122 of 488 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $82,760, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
The label is broader than the work. From $46,730 at the bottom tenth to $126,520 at the top, the same title covers roles that share little beyond a name.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
A smaller wage in a cheaper place is not automatically less. Adjusted for local prices, this is worth $64,989.
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 Missouri's own levy, $59,635 remains.
Why is this job missing from some states?
A blank is a suppression, not a zero. 49 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 Missouri is $82,760. 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 ($46,730) and the ninetieth ($126,520) 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?
Missouri'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 $64,989 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 $59,635 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Missouri 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 49 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.