Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks in Montana
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$38,696
after federal, FICA and Montana tax
Tax takes
$8,574
18.1% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$42,880
Montana costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Montana — 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
$47,270
Kept after tax
$38,696
Worth in national money
$42,880
State rank
42
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. Montana pays this job a middle wage of $47,270, 42 of 51 states and about 6.71% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Against other work in Montana, this sits in the middle: 326 of 475 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cheaper living works in this state's favor. From $47,270 you keep $38,696 after tax, and local prices stretch that to the equivalent of $42,880 at national prices. Averages run higher here, $48,870, since top earners drag the number up.
- Montana's $47,270 median for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks places it 42 of 51 states, about 6.71% below national. Because both the tax and price adjustments tend to favor lower-nominal states, this ranking is the least stable of the three reported here.
- Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks ranks 326 of 475 occupations in Montana by median pay, in the middle bands. Within-state and national positions are separate measurements and a job commonly sits in different quartiles on each.
- Retained pay in Montana is $38,696 after the full tax stack, from $47,270. Because the state's price level runs below the national average, the price-adjusted equivalent is $42,880 — a real-terms figure describing purchasing power rather than compensation, and not a number that appears on any pay stub. Mean pay of $48,870 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $34,270 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $47,270 |
| Top tenth earn over | $63,980 |
| This salary | $47,270 |
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 Montana | $38,696 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $40,161 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$1,551 |
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 | $45,447 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$1,876 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 90 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Montana earn less than $47,270. The published range is $34,270 up to $63,980, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- In Montana the take-home figure of $38,696, from $47,270, assumes one filer, no dependants, and nothing paid into a pension before tax. Each of those lowers the bill, so treat it as the plain case. City and school-district income taxes are not included either, and in a few states those are real money. It ranks 326 of 475 occupations here.
- Two cautions on $42,880, the adjusted value of that $47,270 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Montana. 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 326 of 475 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks in Montana the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $34,270 to $63,980. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- Take-home for Montana is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $38,696 from $47,270. Each omitted item reduces taxable income, so the figure is a lower bound on retained pay for this household shape. Municipal and school-district income taxes are excluded, which understates the burden materially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The occupation ranks 326 of 475 locally.
- This $42,880 adjusted figure, worked from $47,270, 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 326 of 475 in the state. The occupation ranks 326 of 475 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 $48,870 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $34,270 at the tenth percentile, $63,980 at the ninetieth.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
A smaller wage in a cheaper place is not automatically less. Adjusted for local prices, this is worth $42,880.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Into four separate taxes, not one. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare apply everywhere, and Montana adds its own income tax on top — which is why $38,696 of this wage survives to your account.
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 Montana is $48,870. 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 ($34,270 to $63,980) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Montana rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Montana'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 $42,880 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 $38,696 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Montana 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.