Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary in Pennsylvania
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$60,824
after federal, FICA and Pennsylvania tax
Tax takes
$16,456
21.3% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$62,384
Pennsylvania costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Pennsylvania — 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
$77,280
Kept after tax
$60,824
Worth in national money
$62,384
State rank
23
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Neither high nor low. Pennsylvania is 23 of 49 states for this job, with a middle wage of $77,280. What that is worth is the question the rest of this page answers.
- Against other work in Pennsylvania, this sits in the middle: 137 of 492 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Prices here sit close to the national average, so the adjustment changes little. From $77,280 the take-home is $60,824, which is worth about $62,384 in comparable money. Tax does most of the work here, not cost of living. The average is higher, $79,170, because the best-paid pull it up.
- Pennsylvania ranks 23 of 49 for art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary at $77,280. The nominal figure is unremarkable; the adjusted figures are where the state's actual position for this occupation is determined.
- Art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary ranks 137 of 492 occupations in Pennsylvania 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.
- Pennsylvania's price level is near the national average, so price deflation is close to neutral for art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary on its $77,280 median: $60,824 retained after tax becomes $62,384 in national-average terms. Where the price adjustment is small, the tax stack is the dominant determinant of the real outcome. The mean of $79,170 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $38,460 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $77,280 |
| Top tenth earn over | $122,210 |
| This salary | $77,280 |
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 Pennsylvania | $60,824 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $63,196 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,650 |
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 | $73,908 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,661 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 98 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $77,280 as a midpoint for Pennsylvania, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $38,460 and the ninetieth is $122,210 — 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 Pennsylvania's $60,824, worked from $77,280. 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 137 of 492.
- Two cautions on $62,384, the adjusted value of that $77,280 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Pennsylvania. 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 137 of 492 locally.
- The Pennsylvania median of $77,280 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $38,460 to $122,210. 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 Pennsylvania take-home of $60,824, on $77,280 for work ranking 137 of 492 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 137 of 492 in the state.
- This $62,384 adjusted figure, worked from $77,280, 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 137 of 492 in the state. The occupation ranks 137 of 492 locally.
Questions people ask
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $38,460, the highest tenth $122,210, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
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 $62,384.
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 Pennsylvania's own levy, $60,824 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 49 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.
What drives the percentile dispersion in this occupation?
Dispersion between the tenth percentile ($38,460) and the ninetieth ($122,210) 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?
Pennsylvania'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 $62,384 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 $60,824 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Pennsylvania 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.