Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics
What the pay figures show
- Two answers for this job. Best paid: the District of Columbia, at $68,660. Tax does not change that. Best off: North Dakota, at $54,497 once local prices count. Tax was not what separated them. Rent was.
- The District of Columbia's $68,660 median for automotive service technicians and mechanics survives the tax adjustment intact, so state income tax is not a differentiator in this occupation's geography. It does not survive price deflation: North Dakota takes the top position at $54,497. Housing is where regional price variation concentrates, which is why the reordering appears at this step and not the previous one.
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
$50,620
People doing it
704,640
Highest paid
$68,660
DC
Best off, really
$54,497
ND, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$34,660
Highest tenth
$81,790
Lowest, really
$35,056
WV
States with data
51
National average
$56,420
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.57%
ND, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Pay for this job is fairly steady around the country. Count tax and local prices and the states bunch closer still, from $35,056 to $54,497. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- 704,640 people do this job across the country, and the middle one earns $50,620. Common work, though not one of the giants.
- Every state reports this one. All 51 jurisdictions publish a figure, and the middle wage is $50,620, so the comparison above leaves nobody out.
- Geographic dispersion in automotive service technicians and mechanics is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $35,056 through $54,497. Where nominal spread is this contained, relocation decisions in the occupation turn on non-wage factors, because the wage differential does not survive the adjustments in a form large enough to drive them.
- National employment in automotive service technicians and mechanics is 704,640 — a substantial occupation, though an order of magnitude below the largest. Regional differentials here move real aggregate sums without dominating any single state's wage bill.
- All 51 jurisdictions publish an occupational median for automotive service technicians and mechanics, so the spread described above is a complete national range rather than a range across a reported subset.
Pay band: Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $34,660 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $50,620 |
| Top tenth earn over | $81,790 |
| This salary | $50,620 |
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 Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics
The national median for this job
$50,620around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $34,660 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $50,620 |
| Top tenth | $81,790 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | West Virginia · $37,660 |
|---|---|
| Highest | District of Columbia · $68,660 |
| Spread | $31,000 |
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 | $48,310 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $49,714 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ND | $57,360 | $48,269 | $54,497 |
| MT | $58,740 | $47,374 | $52,495 |
| AK | $60,840 | $51,065 | $50,204 |
| SD | $51,160 | $43,287 | $49,137 |
| DC | $68,660 | $54,116 | $48,839 |
| CO | $61,280 | $49,431 | $48,757 |
| WY | $51,330 | $43,424 | $47,798 |
| MN | $58,390 | $46,649 | $47,400 |
| WI | $54,350 | $44,024 | $47,289 |
| NH | $59,020 | $49,603 | $47,086 |
| VA | $59,330 | $47,201 | $46,850 |
| DE | $58,410 | $46,438 | $46,787 |
| IA | $50,510 | $41,457 | $46,703 |
| CA | $64,980 | $52,265 | $46,425 |
| MI | $54,120 | $43,616 | $46,309 |
| CT | $60,220 | $48,005 | $46,297 |
| TN | $50,290 | $42,588 | $46,034 |
| NE | $50,560 | $41,208 | $45,596 |
| MA | $60,760 | $48,283 | $44,608 |
| WA | $57,270 | $48,196 | $44,395 |
| OH | $48,710 | $40,695 | $44,325 |
| MD | $57,520 | $46,029 | $44,273 |
| MO | $49,160 | $40,307 | $43,925 |
| IN | $49,360 | $40,414 | $43,841 |
| VT | $51,630 | $42,191 | $43,661 |
| LA | $46,400 | $38,457 | $43,530 |
| NM | $47,300 | $39,119 | $43,280 |
| ID | $48,420 | $39,373 | $43,065 |
| ME | $52,040 | $41,801 | $43,051 |
| OK | $46,560 | $37,996 | $43,038 |
| SC | $48,100 | $39,955 | $42,881 |
| OR | $58,520 | $44,631 | $42,618 |
| KS | $47,790 | $38,201 | $42,462 |
| NJ | $56,610 | $46,086 | $42,326 |
| NV | $48,290 | $40,981 | $42,257 |
| TX | $48,310 | $40,997 | $42,189 |
| AR | $44,160 | $36,487 | $42,178 |
| NC | $48,200 | $39,494 | $41,953 |
| PA | $49,800 | $40,665 | $41,708 |
| RI | $51,770 | $42,256 | $41,667 |
| GA | $49,060 | $39,750 | $41,107 |
| AL | $45,640 | $36,900 | $41,013 |
| AZ | $49,570 | $41,173 | $40,723 |
| KY | $44,890 | $36,796 | $40,672 |
| NY | $54,120 | $43,340 | $40,269 |
| IL | $49,170 | $39,399 | $39,855 |
| FL | $48,260 | $40,957 | $39,590 |
| UT | $46,570 | $37,527 | $39,501 |
| HI | $52,160 | $41,569 | $38,274 |
| MS | $37,820 | $31,148 | $35,682 |
| WV | $37,660 | $31,470 | $35,056 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for this job as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $50,620, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for this job. 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 $54,116.
- The price adjustment for this job uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — West Virginia anchors the bottom at $35,056. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- These are distribution medians for automotive service technicians and mechanics, with a national value of $50,620. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
- The household modeled for automotive service technicians and mechanics 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, $54,116. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for automotive service technicians and mechanics deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.