Audio and Video Technicians
What the pay figures show
- The District of Columbia pays audio and video technicians the most, at $78,770. Unusually, it stays on top. Tax does not overturn it. Nor do local prices — it is still first at $54,617 once levelled out. That is rarer than it sounds. For most jobs the leader changes.
- The District of Columbia leads for audio and video technicians at $78,770 and retains the position through both adjustments, finishing first at $54,617 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
Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.
Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$58,100
People doing it
70,230
Highest paid
$78,770
DC
Best off, really
$54,617
DC, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$37,990
Highest tenth
$100,650
Lowest, really
$38,161
OR
States with data
49
National average
$64,630
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
110.8%
DC, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- The state you work in changes what this job pays, but less than you would expect. Level out tax and prices and the whole country sits between $38,161 and $54,617. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- This is a small job: about 70,230 people nationally. Fewer workers means each state figure is built on less data.
- Not every state reports this one. The figures here cover 49 jurisdictions, and the middle wage across them is $58,100. A state you do not see is one with no published number, not one paying nothing. Of those published, The District of Columbia pays most.
- Interstate variation for audio and video technicians is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $38,161 to $54,617. A differential of this magnitude is real but rarely decisive on its own, which is worth stating plainly against wage tables that present nominal gaps without either adjustment.
- With 70,230 workers, audio and video technicians is among the smaller occupations BLS publishes. Treat single-state figures as indicative rather than precise; suppression and sampling error both bite harder at this scale.
- BLS publishes an occupational median for audio and video technicians in 49 jurisdictions, short of the full set. ⚠️ Absence reflects estimate suppression — small samples or disclosure rules — rather than absence of employment, so the state comparison above is over the published subset.
Pay band: Audio and Video Technicians
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $37,990 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $58,100 |
| Top tenth earn over | $100,650 |
| This salary | $58,100 |
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 Audio and Video Technicians
The national median for this job
$58,100around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $37,990 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $58,100 |
| Top tenth | $100,650 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Audio and Video Technicians, state by state
The national median for this job
49states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Mississippi · $43,500 |
|---|---|
| Highest | District of Columbia · $78,770 |
| Spread | $35,270 |
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 | $49,440 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $50,877 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DC | $78,770 | $60,518 | $54,617 |
| NV | $62,770 | $52,616 | $54,254 |
| MD | $70,040 | $55,140 | $53,037 |
| WA | $69,270 | $57,561 | $53,022 |
| NJ | $71,040 | $56,429 | $51,826 |
| AK | $62,060 | $52,045 | $51,168 |
| RI | $64,070 | $51,678 | $50,958 |
| MI | $58,300 | $46,797 | $49,687 |
| NY | $67,600 | $53,333 | $49,554 |
| IL | $60,740 | $48,123 | $48,680 |
| ND | $50,110 | $42,443 | $47,920 |
| DE | $59,700 | $47,402 | $47,759 |
| CT | $62,120 | $49,427 | $47,668 |
| PA | $56,890 | $46,145 | $47,328 |
| IA | $51,030 | $41,855 | $47,152 |
| WY | $49,680 | $42,098 | $46,339 |
| CA | $64,620 | $52,005 | $46,193 |
| SC | $52,000 | $42,830 | $45,966 |
| TN | $49,970 | $42,331 | $45,756 |
| NE | $50,660 | $41,284 | $45,680 |
| CO | $56,790 | $46,020 | $45,393 |
| OH | $49,890 | $41,611 | $45,322 |
| MO | $50,680 | $41,457 | $45,179 |
| OK | $49,010 | $39,855 | $45,143 |
| NH | $56,180 | $47,321 | $44,920 |
| WI | $51,390 | $41,792 | $44,891 |
| AL | $50,160 | $40,333 | $44,829 |
| KS | $50,030 | $39,876 | $44,324 |
| ID | $49,950 | $40,521 | $44,321 |
| IN | $49,870 | $40,809 | $44,269 |
| FL | $54,230 | $45,754 | $44,227 |
| MN | $53,800 | $43,273 | $43,969 |
| HI | $60,150 | $47,382 | $43,627 |
| KY | $48,320 | $39,432 | $43,586 |
| VT | $51,500 | $42,091 | $43,557 |
| TX | $49,440 | $41,905 | $43,123 |
| NM | $47,070 | $38,944 | $43,086 |
| GA | $51,350 | $41,476 | $42,892 |
| VA | $53,960 | $43,195 | $42,874 |
| WV | $46,590 | $38,315 | $42,680 |
| MT | $46,700 | $38,265 | $42,402 |
| AR | $43,910 | $36,296 | $41,956 |
| LA | $44,480 | $36,972 | $41,849 |
| UT | $48,730 | $39,166 | $41,227 |
| NC | $46,700 | $38,349 | $40,736 |
| MS | $43,500 | $35,484 | $40,650 |
| AZ | $47,140 | $39,281 | $38,852 |
| ME | $46,080 | $37,415 | $38,534 |
| OR | $52,000 | $39,962 | $38,161 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for audio and video technicians, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $58,100 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for audio and video technicians. 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, the District of Columbia keeps the most at $60,518.
- Levelling out prices for audio and video technicians is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — Oregon sits at the bottom on $38,161.
- All wage figures for audio and video technicians are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $58,100. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- The household modeled for audio and video technicians 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 the District of Columbia retains the most, $60,518. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- The price deflation applied to audio and video technicians uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is Oregon at $38,161. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Oregon anchors the bottom at $38,161 — and the two source series are dated independently.