Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists
What the pay figures show
- Hawaii pays this job the most on paper: $80,080. 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 North Dakota wins at $62,401. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists, Hawaii's $80,080 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote Washington; regional price parity then promotes North Dakota, whose $62,401 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
$61,770
People doing it
289,960
Highest paid
$80,080
HI
Best off, really
$62,401
ND, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$44,530
Highest tenth
$88,740
Lowest, really
$42,697
WV
States with data
51
National average
$64,320
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.57%
ND, 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 $42,697 to $62,401. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- About 289,960 Americans work in this job, on a middle wage of $61,770. Big enough that where you live changes the arithmetic.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $61,770 in the middle.
- Geographic dispersion in bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $42,697 through $62,401. 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.
- With 289,960 workers, bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists sits in the middle of the BLS headcount distribution. The state-level spread described above therefore applies to a meaningful population rather than a niche one.
- 51 jurisdictions report bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $44,530 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $61,770 |
| Top tenth earn over | $88,740 |
| This salary | $61,770 |
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 Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists
The national median for this job
$61,770around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $44,530 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $61,770 |
| Top tenth | $88,740 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | West Virginia · $46,610 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Hawaii · $80,080 |
| Spread | $33,470 |
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 | $58,810 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $60,520 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ND | $66,110 | $55,269 | $62,401 |
| AK | $75,580 | $62,001 | $60,955 |
| NV | $68,410 | $56,956 | $58,730 |
| WA | $77,900 | $63,633 | $58,614 |
| WY | $61,580 | $51,660 | $56,864 |
| NH | $71,390 | $59,053 | $56,057 |
| MD | $74,790 | $58,256 | $56,034 |
| HI | $80,080 | $60,523 | $55,726 |
| SD | $58,120 | $48,879 | $55,485 |
| CO | $70,480 | $56,020 | $55,256 |
| IA | $59,680 | $48,477 | $54,611 |
| LA | $58,680 | $47,955 | $54,282 |
| OH | $60,470 | $49,821 | $54,264 |
| WI | $62,450 | $50,106 | $53,821 |
| TN | $59,190 | $49,739 | $53,763 |
| UT | $64,350 | $51,022 | $53,706 |
| MN | $66,840 | $52,830 | $53,680 |
| MT | $59,990 | $48,319 | $53,543 |
| RI | $67,270 | $54,052 | $53,299 |
| IN | $60,610 | $49,122 | $53,287 |
| NE | $59,140 | $47,712 | $52,792 |
| MA | $73,270 | $57,032 | $52,691 |
| NJ | $72,340 | $57,272 | $52,600 |
| MO | $59,360 | $48,023 | $52,334 |
| MI | $61,420 | $49,171 | $52,208 |
| KS | $59,460 | $46,927 | $52,161 |
| ID | $59,230 | $47,485 | $51,939 |
| SC | $59,330 | $48,233 | $51,765 |
| CA | $73,950 | $58,010 | $51,528 |
| IL | $64,340 | $50,837 | $51,426 |
| CT | $67,300 | $53,224 | $51,330 |
| PA | $61,740 | $49,893 | $51,172 |
| NY | $70,100 | $54,957 | $51,063 |
| TX | $58,810 | $49,434 | $50,871 |
| GA | $61,370 | $49,027 | $50,701 |
| DE | $63,590 | $50,309 | $50,687 |
| OK | $55,340 | $44,656 | $50,581 |
| NM | $55,910 | $45,642 | $50,496 |
| MS | $54,360 | $43,776 | $50,149 |
| AZ | $61,680 | $50,600 | $50,047 |
| VT | $59,390 | $48,091 | $49,765 |
| ME | $60,850 | $48,286 | $49,729 |
| KY | $55,480 | $44,934 | $49,668 |
| NC | $57,490 | $46,588 | $49,489 |
| AR | $52,330 | $42,750 | $49,417 |
| FL | $60,490 | $50,784 | $49,089 |
| VA | $61,090 | $48,514 | $48,153 |
| DC | $65,200 | $51,777 | $46,728 |
| OR | $63,970 | $48,533 | $46,345 |
| AL | $50,470 | $40,568 | $45,091 |
| WV | $46,610 | $38,330 | $42,697 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for this job, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $61,770 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- The take-home numbers here use the simplest possible household: one filer for this job, no children, no pension contributions, standard deduction. Real life usually reduces the tax bill below this. City and school-district income taxes are left out, and in Ohio or Pennsylvania that is a real omission. The best after-tax state here is Washington, at $63,633.
- Levelling out prices for this job 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 $42,697.
- All wage figures for bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $61,770. 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.
- Retained-pay figures for bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists model a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax deferrals — deliberately the simplest household, so the comparison across states isolates geography rather than personal circumstances. Local income taxes are outside the model; Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland residents should expect a meaningfully lower figure than $63,633, which leads in Washington.
- The price deflation applied to bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists 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 $42,697. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — West Virginia anchors the bottom at $42,697 — and the two source series are dated independently.