Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary in Virginia
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$57,957
after federal, FICA and Virginia tax
Tax takes
$16,913
22.6% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$57,526
Virginia costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Virginia — 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
$74,870
Kept after tax
$57,957
Worth in national money
$57,526
State rank
29
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Virginia sits in the middle of the pack for this job. The median is $74,870, ranking 29 of 49 states with figures. Close enough to the national middle that where you live matters more than the headline suggests.
- Against other work in Virginia, this sits in the middle: 159 of 489 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 $74,870 the take-home is $57,957, which is worth about $57,526 in comparable money. Tax does most of the work here, not cost of living. The average is higher, $81,160, because the best-paid pull it up.
- Virginia occupies the middle band for art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary: a median of $74,870, ranking 29 of 49. Where nominal pay is close to the national figure, the tax and price adjustments below carry proportionally more weight in determining the real outcome.
- Art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary ranks 159 of 489 occupations in Virginia 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.
- Virginia's price level is near the national average, so price deflation is close to neutral for art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary on its $74,870 median: $57,957 retained after tax becomes $57,526 in national-average terms. Where the price adjustment is small, the tax stack is the dominant determinant of the real outcome. The mean of $81,160 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 | $43,520 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $74,870 |
| Top tenth earn over | $124,260 |
| This salary | $74,870 |
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 Virginia | $57,957 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $61,501 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$5,763 |
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 | $69,832 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$7,961 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
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 Virginia earn under $74,870 and half over. The published range runs $43,520 at the tenth percentile to $124,260 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 Virginia's $57,957, worked from $74,870. 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 159 of 489.
- Two cautions on $57,526, the adjusted value of that $74,870 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Virginia. 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 159 of 489 locally.
- Figures are distribution medians for art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary in Virginia, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $43,520 to $124,260; 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 Virginia take-home of $57,957, on $74,870 for work ranking 159 of 489 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 159 of 489 in the state.
- This $57,526 adjusted figure, worked from $74,870, 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 159 of 489 in the state. The occupation ranks 159 of 489 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 $81,160 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 $43,520, the highest tenth $124,260, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
The number and the value are different things. Virginia costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $57,526 rather than its face figure.
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 Virginia's own levy, $57,957 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.
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 Virginia is $81,160. 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 ($43,520) and the ninetieth ($124,260) 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.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Virginia's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $57,526 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $57,957 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Virginia 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.