Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks in Rhode Island
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$43,412
after federal, FICA and Rhode Island tax
Tax takes
$9,868
18.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$42,808
Rhode Island costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Rhode Island — 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
$53,280
Kept after tax
$43,412
Worth in national money
$42,808
State rank
14
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for this job is strong here. Rhode Island's middle earner gets $53,280, putting the state 14 of 51 — about 5.15% ahead of the national figure.
- Against other work in Rhode Island, this sits in the middle: 295 of 452 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $53,280, tax leaves $43,412, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $42,808 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $56,270, since top earners drag the number up.
- For bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks, Rhode Island sits in the upper band nationally: a median of $53,280, ranking 14 of 51 and running about 5.15% above the national midpoint. Nominal advantage of this size is usually, though not always, large enough to survive the state's own tax and price levels.
- Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks ranks 295 of 452 occupations in Rhode Island 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.
- Because Rhode Island sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks — median $53,280 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $43,412 retained, $42,808 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $56,270 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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 band: Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $39,880 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $53,280 |
| Top tenth earn over | $76,210 |
| This salary | $53,280 |
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 Rhode Island | $43,412 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $44,990 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$3,490 |
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 | $51,316 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$4,221 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
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 bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks in Rhode Island earn under $53,280 and half over. The published range runs $39,880 at the tenth percentile to $76,210 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- That $43,412 take-home in Rhode Island comes from $53,280. It is the no-frills case: single filer, standard deduction, nothing set aside before tax. Real circumstances almost always reduce the tax. City and school-district taxes are not counted at all. Locally the work ranks 295 of 452.
- Two cautions on $42,808, the adjusted value of that $53,280 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Rhode Island. 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 295 of 452 locally.
- Figures are distribution medians for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks in Rhode Island, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $39,880 to $76,210; 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.
- Retained pay of $43,412, from $53,280, assumes a single Rhode Island filer with the standard deduction and no elective deferrals. Pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions, dependants and itemized deductions all reduce it further; local income taxes, excluded here, would increase it in the states that levy them. This occupation ranks 295 of 452 locally, and the state ranks 14 of 51 for it.
- This $42,808 adjusted figure, worked from $53,280, 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 295 of 452 in the state. The occupation ranks 295 of 452 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 $56,270, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $39,880 and the top tenth $76,210, so most people doing this work in Rhode Island sit within a fairly tight band.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
Not on its own. Prices in Rhode Island run above the national level, so the same dollars buy less here. Adjusted for that, this pay is worth $42,808 — the wage did not change, only what it covers.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Three of them are federal and one is not. After income tax, Social Security, Medicare and Rhode Island's own levy, $43,412 remains.
Can I compare this job across every state?
Yes for this one. Pay is published in all 51 jurisdictions, so a state-to-state comparison here rests on the same survey everywhere rather than on a patchwork.
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 Rhode Island is $56,270. 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 ($39,880 to $76,210) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Rhode Island rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Rhode Island's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $42,808 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $43,412 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Rhode Island 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.