Bartenders in Alaska
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$26,655
after federal, FICA and Alaska tax
Tax takes
$3,805
12.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$26,205
Alaska costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Alaska — 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
$30,460
Kept after tax
$26,655
Worth in national money
$26,205
State rank
25
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Alaska pays bartenders around $30,460 at the midpoint, 25 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against 430 occupations Alaska publishes, bartenders lands at 427. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $30,460, tax leaves $26,655, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $26,205 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $36,560, since top earners drag the number up.
- For bartenders the Alaska median is $30,460, ranking 25 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 Alaska, this work ranks 427 of 430 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 Alaska sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for bartenders — median $30,460 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $26,655 retained, $26,205 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $36,560 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Bartenders
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $24,880 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $30,460 |
| Top tenth earn over | $61,550 |
| This salary | $30,460 |
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 Alaska | $26,655 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $26,655 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$1,224 |
The raise and the real gain point in opposite directions here.
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 | $30,460 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$1,481 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 102 |
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 bartenders in Alaska earn under $30,460 and half over. The published range runs $24,880 at the tenth percentile to $61,550 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 Alaska's $26,655, worked from $30,460. 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 427 of 430.
- Two cautions on $26,205, the adjusted value of that $30,460 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Alaska. 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 427 of 430 locally.
- Figures are distribution medians for bartenders in Alaska, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $24,880 to $61,550; 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 Alaska take-home of $26,655, on $30,460 for work ranking 427 of 430 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 427 of 430 in the state.
- This $26,205 adjusted figure, worked from $30,460, 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 427 of 430 in the state. The occupation ranks 427 of 430 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $36,560, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
The label is broader than the work. From $24,880 at the bottom tenth to $61,550 at the top, the same title covers roles that share little beyond a name.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
The number and the value are different things. Alaska costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $26,205 rather than its face figure.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $26,655 of this wage reaches your account, because Alaska takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
Can I compare this job across every state?
All 51 jurisdictions report this work, which makes the ranking a like-for-like one.
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 Alaska is $36,560. 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 ($24,880) and the ninetieth ($61,550) 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?
Alaska's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $26,205 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Alaska levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $26,655 reflects the federal layer and FICA alone. Federal income tax and FICA are unchanged; states without a wage income tax generally recover revenue through consumption and property bases instead.
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.