Bakers
What the pay figures show
- Hawaii pays bakers the most on paper: $46,710. Two things happen before that money is yours. State tax takes a share, which puts Washington in front. Then local prices decide what is left, and Wyoming wins at $37,777. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For bakers, Hawaii's $46,710 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote Washington; regional price parity then promotes Wyoming, whose $37,777 real figure is the highest purchasing power available in this occupation. Nominal wage comparisons across states are therefore a poor guide to relocation, and the error compounds rather than cancels.
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
$37,160
People doing it
236,200
Highest paid
$46,710
HI
Best off, really
$37,777
WY, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$28,120
Highest tenth
$49,020
Lowest, really
$27,162
WV
States with data
51
National average
$38,480
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
90.85%
WY, 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 $27,162 to $37,777. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- 236,200 people do this job across the country, and the middle one earns $37,160. Common work, though not one of the giants.
- Every state reports this one. All 51 jurisdictions publish a figure, and the middle wage is $37,160, so the comparison above leaves nobody out.
- Geographic dispersion in bakers is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $27,162 through $37,777. 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 bakers is 236,200 — 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 bakers, so the spread described above is a complete national range rather than a range across a reported subset.
Pay band: Bakers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $28,120 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $37,160 |
| Top tenth earn over | $49,020 |
| This salary | $37,160 |
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 Bakers
The national median for this job
$37,160around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $28,120 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $37,160 |
| Top tenth | $49,020 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Bakers, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Louisiana · $28,020 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Hawaii · $46,710 |
| Spread | $18,690 |
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 | $33,790 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $34,772 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WY | $40,000 | $34,320 | $37,777 |
| SD | $38,340 | $32,986 | $37,444 |
| WA | $46,140 | $39,253 | $36,158 |
| ND | $36,900 | $31,829 | $35,936 |
| IA | $37,210 | $31,276 | $35,234 |
| NV | $39,540 | $33,950 | $35,008 |
| HI | $46,710 | $37,582 | $34,603 |
| MT | $37,200 | $31,079 | $34,438 |
| VT | $39,980 | $33,221 | $34,378 |
| MN | $40,210 | $33,156 | $33,689 |
| AK | $39,710 | $34,087 | $33,512 |
| WI | $37,310 | $31,173 | $33,484 |
| CO | $40,650 | $33,762 | $33,302 |
| NM | $34,850 | $29,651 | $32,805 |
| NE | $35,280 | $29,626 | $32,781 |
| IN | $36,150 | $30,190 | $32,749 |
| DC | $44,040 | $36,090 | $32,571 |
| SC | $35,460 | $30,265 | $32,481 |
| OH | $34,560 | $29,715 | $32,365 |
| MO | $35,130 | $29,693 | $32,359 |
| TN | $34,440 | $29,853 | $32,268 |
| NH | $39,500 | $33,918 | $32,197 |
| CA | $43,120 | $35,966 | $31,947 |
| ME | $37,390 | $30,965 | $31,891 |
| UT | $36,670 | $30,013 | $31,591 |
| AZ | $37,700 | $31,932 | $31,583 |
| MI | $35,830 | $29,697 | $31,531 |
| RI | $38,140 | $31,815 | $31,372 |
| KY | $33,890 | $28,342 | $31,328 |
| ID | $34,060 | $28,595 | $31,277 |
| KS | $34,300 | $28,115 | $31,251 |
| AL | $34,030 | $28,086 | $31,217 |
| PA | $36,360 | $30,279 | $31,055 |
| NC | $34,510 | $29,041 | $30,849 |
| IL | $37,030 | $30,245 | $30,596 |
| DE | $36,730 | $30,221 | $30,448 |
| TX | $33,790 | $29,330 | $30,183 |
| GA | $35,010 | $29,162 | $30,158 |
| OK | $31,460 | $26,543 | $30,065 |
| AR | $30,380 | $25,925 | $29,968 |
| FL | $35,870 | $31,002 | $29,967 |
| OR | $39,500 | $31,012 | $29,614 |
| NY | $38,660 | $31,753 | $29,503 |
| MD | $37,040 | $30,546 | $29,381 |
| CT | $36,460 | $30,445 | $29,362 |
| MA | $38,130 | $31,231 | $28,854 |
| NJ | $36,960 | $31,301 | $28,748 |
| VA | $34,430 | $28,625 | $28,413 |
| MS | $28,920 | $24,352 | $27,898 |
| LA | $28,020 | $24,230 | $27,427 |
| WV | $28,480 | $24,384 | $27,162 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for bakers, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $37,160 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 bakers. 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, Washington keeps the most at $39,253.
- Levelling out prices for bakers 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 — West Virginia sits at the bottom on $27,162.
- All wage figures for bakers are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $37,160. 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 bakers 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 Washington retains the most, $39,253. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- The price deflation applied to bakers 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 West Virginia at $27,162. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — West Virginia anchors the bottom at $27,162 — and the two source series are dated independently.