Chief Executives
What the pay figures show
- Oregon pays chief executives the most on paper: $341,630. 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 South Dakota wins at $230,672. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For chief executives, Oregon's $341,630 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote Washington; regional price parity then promotes South Dakota, whose $230,672 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
$213,990
People doing it
204,350
Highest paid
$341,630
OR
Best off, really
$230,672
SD, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$75,700
Highest tenth
$507,730
Lowest, really
$100,632
NM
States with data
46
National average
$269,630
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.09%
SD, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Where you do this job matters enormously. The best state pays roughly twice what the worst does. Prices alone cannot explain a gap that size. Level everything out and the range still runs $100,632 to $230,672.
- 204,350 people do this job across the country, and the middle one earns $213,990. Common work, though not one of the giants.
- Some states are missing here. There are figures for 46 jurisdictions, averaging $213,990 in the middle. A blank means nobody published a number, not that the job pays nothing there. Oregon leads the published set.
- Geographic dispersion in chief executives is unusually wide: the top state's median is approximately double the bottom's, a spread that price differentials cannot account for. The real-terms range, after tax and price deflation, still runs $100,632 to $230,672 — so the variation reflects genuine differences in local labor markets rather than a nominal illusion.
- National employment in chief executives is 204,350 — a substantial occupation, though an order of magnitude below the largest. Regional differentials here move real aggregate sums without dominating any single state's wage bill.
- Coverage for chief executives runs to 46 jurisdictions, short of the full set. The omitted states are suppressed at source; treat the spread above as the range across reported states rather than across the country.
Pay band: Chief Executives
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $75,700 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $213,990 |
| Top tenth earn over | $507,730 |
| This salary | $213,990 |
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 Chief Executives
The national median for this job
$213,990around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $75,700 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $213,990 |
| Top tenth | $507,730 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Chief Executives, state by state
The national median for this job
46states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Arkansas · $119,990 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Oregon · $341,630 |
| Spread | $221,640 |
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 | $257,850 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $265,346 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SD | $280,900 | $203,211 | $230,672 |
| NC | $314,290 | $212,098 | $225,303 |
| IL | $331,920 | $218,745 | $221,278 |
| WA | $339,810 | $240,118 | $221,180 |
| VA | $310,740 | $204,798 | $203,276 |
| OR | $341,630 | $209,456 | $200,013 |
| TX | $257,850 | $188,336 | $193,811 |
| IN | $254,180 | $178,457 | $193,588 |
| CT | $295,120 | $195,006 | $188,068 |
| NJ | $310,440 | $204,132 | $187,479 |
| MI | $255,560 | $176,222 | $187,104 |
| PA | $232,560 | $164,593 | $168,813 |
| IA | $211,190 | $149,755 | $168,706 |
| HI | $281,640 | $182,484 | $168,019 |
| NE | $214,680 | $150,674 | $166,720 |
| MD | $248,660 | $169,800 | $163,324 |
| RI | $235,360 | $163,276 | $161,003 |
| TN | $198,830 | $148,055 | $160,033 |
| NY | $257,980 | $171,601 | $159,442 |
| WI | $208,350 | $144,621 | $155,344 |
| GA | $208,180 | $145,162 | $150,118 |
| CO | $213,370 | $150,094 | $148,048 |
| KY | $179,530 | $127,809 | $141,275 |
| MT | $182,340 | $126,954 | $140,679 |
| OH | $176,440 | $127,727 | $139,118 |
| DE | $199,990 | $136,951 | $137,982 |
| ND | $164,560 | $121,793 | $137,507 |
| ID | $177,210 | $123,850 | $135,466 |
| MN | $195,670 | $133,172 | $135,314 |
| MO | $172,320 | $121,885 | $132,827 |
| OK | $163,790 | $116,346 | $131,784 |
| AL | $166,420 | $118,292 | $131,479 |
| CA | $218,600 | $146,330 | $129,978 |
| SC | $168,840 | $118,838 | $127,540 |
| UT | $171,880 | $121,097 | $127,468 |
| VT | $175,070 | $121,005 | $125,219 |
| WY | $147,940 | $112,383 | $123,704 |
| KS | $158,100 | $110,794 | $123,152 |
| AK | $166,710 | $125,212 | $123,101 |
| WV | $151,950 | $109,054 | $121,478 |
| NH | $168,590 | $126,497 | $120,079 |
| NV | $149,770 | $113,634 | $117,172 |
| MS | $139,250 | $100,965 | $115,664 |
| AR | $119,990 | $89,262 | $103,183 |
| ME | $138,770 | $97,835 | $100,761 |
| NM | $123,500 | $90,958 | $100,632 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for chief executives, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $213,990 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for chief executives. 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, Washington keeps the most at $240,118.
- Levelling out prices for chief executives 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 — New Mexico sits at the bottom on $100,632.
- All wage figures for chief executives are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $213,990. 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.
- The household modeled for chief executives 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 Washington retains the most, $240,118. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- The price deflation applied to chief executives 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 New Mexico at $100,632. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — New Mexico anchors the bottom at $100,632 — and the two source series are dated independently.