Chefs and Head Cooks in Illinois
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$46,683
after federal, FICA and Illinois tax
Tax takes
$12,147
20.6% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$47,223
Illinois costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Illinois — 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
$58,830
Kept after tax
$46,683
Worth in national money
$47,223
State rank
35
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for chefs and head cooks is on the low side in Illinois. The middle earner gets $58,830. That is 35 of 51 states, and about 5.83% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Ordinary, locally speaking. Chefs and head cooks ranks 284 among 494 occupations Illinois publishes pay for.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $58,830, tax leaves $46,683, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $47,223 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $62,810, since top earners drag the number up.
- For chefs and head cooks, Illinois sits in the lower band at $58,830, ranking 35 of 51 and trailing the national median by about 5.83%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Position 284 of 494 in Illinois places chefs and head cooks in the middle of the state's wage distribution. Because within-state and cross-state rankings measure different things, this figure and the national one above should be read together rather than as a single verdict.
- Because Illinois sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for chefs and head cooks — median $58,830 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $46,683 retained, $47,223 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $62,810 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Chefs and Head Cooks
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $40,330 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $58,830 |
| Top tenth earn over | $88,420 |
| This salary | $58,830 |
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 Illinois | $46,683 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $49,450 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$3,664 |
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 | $55,386 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$4,431 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 99 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $58,830 as a midpoint for Illinois, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $40,330 and the ninetieth is $88,420 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $46,683 take-home in Illinois comes from $58,830. 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 284 of 494.
- Two cautions on $47,223, the adjusted value of that $58,830 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Illinois. 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 284 of 494 locally.
- The Illinois median of $58,830 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $40,330 to $88,420. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- Retained pay of $46,683, from $58,830, assumes a single Illinois 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 284 of 494 locally, and the state ranks 35 of 51 for it.
- This $47,223 adjusted figure, worked from $58,830, 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 284 of 494 in the state. The occupation ranks 284 of 494 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 $62,810 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
Because one job title covers very different work. The bottom tenth here earn $40,330 and the top tenth $88,420 — experience, employer and specialism separate them, and a single figure hides all three.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
Further than the number implies. Illinois is cheaper than the national average, so this take-home behaves like $47,223 in national terms.
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 Illinois adds its own income tax on top — which is why $46,683 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 Illinois is $62,810. 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 ($40,330) and the ninetieth ($88,420) 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.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Illinois'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 $47,223 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 $46,683 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Illinois 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.