Biological Technicians
What the pay figures show
- California pays biological technicians the most, $71,440. It still pays the most after tax. What it does not do is stay ahead once you count what living there costs. Level that out and North Carolina wins, at $52,920. Same work. A wage that goes further.
- For biological technicians, California leads both nominally at $71,440 and after tax — state income tax differentials are not large enough here to disturb the ordering. Regional price parity is: deflating take-home by each state's price level puts North Carolina first at $52,920. The adjustment that matters for this occupation is therefore cost of living rather than tax, which is the opposite of the assumption most relocation comparisons start from.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$57,510
People doing it
69,620
Highest paid
$71,440
CA
Best off, really
$52,920
NC, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$40,330
Highest tenth
$84,940
Lowest, really
$35,990
HI
States with data
51
National average
$61,380
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
94.14%
NC, 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 $35,990 to $52,920. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- Only 69,620 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- Every state reports this one. All 51 jurisdictions publish a figure, and the middle wage is $57,510, so the comparison above leaves nobody out.
- Geographic dispersion in biological technicians is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $35,990 through $52,920. 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 biological technicians is 69,620. ⚠️ At this headcount the state-level medians rest on comparatively thin samples, and year-to-year movement in any one state reflects sampling as much as wages.
- All 51 jurisdictions publish an occupational median for biological technicians, so the spread described above is a complete national range rather than a range across a reported subset.
Pay band: Biological Technicians
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $40,330 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $57,510 |
| Top tenth earn over | $84,940 |
| This salary | $57,510 |
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 Biological Technicians
The national median for this job
$57,510around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $40,330 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $57,510 |
| Top tenth | $84,940 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Biological Technicians, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | South Dakota · $41,300 |
|---|---|
| Highest | California · $71,440 |
| Spread | $30,140 |
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 | $50,130 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $51,587 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NC | $61,720 | $49,818 | $52,920 |
| ND | $55,330 | $46,638 | $52,655 |
| MS | $56,930 | $45,738 | $52,397 |
| IN | $58,790 | $47,713 | $51,758 |
| CA | $71,440 | $56,445 | $50,137 |
| ME | $60,160 | $47,778 | $49,206 |
| NJ | $66,040 | $53,142 | $48,807 |
| CT | $62,360 | $49,606 | $47,842 |
| CO | $59,400 | $48,003 | $47,348 |
| WA | $60,800 | $51,033 | $47,008 |
| DE | $58,550 | $46,542 | $46,893 |
| WV | $51,440 | $42,007 | $46,793 |
| SC | $53,040 | $43,597 | $46,789 |
| AK | $56,470 | $47,554 | $46,752 |
| TN | $50,840 | $43,030 | $46,511 |
| DC | $64,770 | $51,459 | $46,442 |
| OH | $51,080 | $42,534 | $46,328 |
| PA | $54,950 | $44,645 | $45,790 |
| KS | $51,630 | $41,072 | $45,654 |
| MA | $62,070 | $49,270 | $45,520 |
| NY | $61,210 | $48,654 | $45,206 |
| NM | $49,570 | $40,845 | $45,190 |
| WI | $51,750 | $42,063 | $45,182 |
| MO | $50,640 | $41,426 | $45,146 |
| MT | $49,920 | $40,701 | $45,101 |
| NV | $51,680 | $43,705 | $45,066 |
| IL | $55,790 | $44,390 | $44,905 |
| AR | $46,930 | $38,610 | $44,632 |
| UT | $52,960 | $42,377 | $44,606 |
| IA | $48,050 | $39,574 | $44,582 |
| NH | $55,540 | $46,806 | $44,432 |
| LA | $47,310 | $39,161 | $44,327 |
| OK | $47,850 | $38,975 | $44,146 |
| KY | $48,910 | $39,885 | $44,087 |
| AL | $49,220 | $39,619 | $44,035 |
| MI | $51,070 | $41,295 | $43,845 |
| GA | $52,420 | $42,283 | $43,726 |
| TX | $50,130 | $42,459 | $43,694 |
| NE | $48,220 | $39,434 | $43,634 |
| AZ | $53,290 | $44,069 | $43,587 |
| WY | $46,480 | $39,527 | $43,509 |
| VT | $51,190 | $41,853 | $43,310 |
| VA | $53,360 | $42,747 | $42,429 |
| MD | $52,900 | $42,536 | $40,914 |
| SD | $41,300 | $35,365 | $40,144 |
| FL | $48,700 | $41,310 | $39,932 |
| MN | $48,130 | $39,096 | $39,725 |
| OR | $52,190 | $40,098 | $38,291 |
| ID | $42,130 | $34,652 | $37,902 |
| RI | $45,530 | $37,476 | $36,954 |
| HI | $48,770 | $39,089 | $35,990 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for biological technicians as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $57,510, 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 biological 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, California keeps the most at $56,445.
- The price adjustment for biological technicians 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 — Hawaii anchors the bottom at $35,990. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- These are distribution medians for biological technicians, with a national value of $57,510. 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 biological 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 California retains the most, $56,445. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for biological technicians 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.