Automotive and Watercraft Service Attendants in Illinois
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$29,476
after federal, FICA and Illinois tax
Tax takes
$6,534
18.1% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$29,818
Illinois costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Illinois — 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
$36,010
Kept after tax
$29,476
Worth in national money
$29,818
State rank
23
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Illinois pays this job around $36,010 at the midpoint, 23 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against 494 occupations Illinois publishes, this job lands at 469. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $36,010, tax leaves $29,476, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $29,818 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $37,940, since top earners drag the number up.
- For automotive and watercraft service attendants the Illinois median is $36,010, ranking 23 of 51 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.
- Within Illinois, this work ranks 469 of 494 occupations by median pay, in the bottom quartile. The within-state position is the more salient one for anyone weighing this job against alternatives available to them locally.
- Because Illinois sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for automotive and watercraft service attendants — median $36,010 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $29,476 retained, $29,818 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $37,940 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Automotive and Watercraft Service Attendants
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $31,200 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $36,010 |
| Top tenth earn over | $49,360 |
| This salary | $36,010 |
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 Illinois | $29,476 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $31,114 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,201 |
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 | $33,972 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,662 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 99 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Illinois earn less than $36,010. The published range is $31,200 up to $49,360, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Illinois's $29,476, worked from $36,010. 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 469 of 494.
- Two cautions on $29,818, the adjusted value of that $36,010 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Illinois. 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 469 of 494 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for automotive and watercraft service attendants in Illinois the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $31,200 to $49,360. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- The Illinois take-home of $29,476, on $36,010 for work ranking 469 of 494 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 469 of 494 in the state.
- This $29,818 adjusted figure, worked from $36,010, 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 469 of 494 in the state. The occupation ranks 469 of 494 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 $37,940 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $31,200 and the top tenth $49,360, so most people doing this work in Illinois sit within a fairly tight band.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
Further than the number implies. Illinois is cheaper than the national average, so this take-home behaves like $29,818 in national terms.
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 Illinois's own levy, $29,476 remains.
Can I compare this job across every state?
This occupation is published everywhere — all 51 of them — so comparing states measures real differences rather than gaps in the data.
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 Illinois is $37,940. 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 is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?
The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($31,200 to $49,360) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Illinois rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Illinois'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 $29,818 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 $29,476 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Illinois 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.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.