Cleaners of Vehicles and Equipment in Rhode Island
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$31,202
after federal, FICA and Rhode Island tax
Tax takes
$6,138
16.4% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$30,768
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
$37,340
Kept after tax
$31,202
Worth in national money
$30,768
State rank
16
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for this job is strong here. Rhode Island's middle earner gets $37,340, putting the state 16 of 51 — about 4.21% ahead of the national figure.
- Within Rhode Island this is lower-paid work. Of 452 occupations the state publishes figures for, this job ranks 409. That is the bottom quarter locally, whatever the national comparison says.
- Prices here sit close to the national average, so the adjustment changes little. From $37,340 the take-home is $31,202, which is worth about $30,768 in comparable money. Tax does most of the work here, not cost of living. The average is higher, $39,530, because the best-paid pull it up.
- For cleaners of vehicles and equipment, Rhode Island sits in the upper band nationally: a median of $37,340, ranking 16 of 51 and running about 4.21% 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.
- Against every occupation Rhode Island reports, cleaners of vehicles and equipment ranks 409 of 452, in the lowest quartile of the state's distribution. That position is set by the local labor market and is independent of how the state compares nationally for this work.
- Rhode Island's price level is near the national average, so price deflation is close to neutral for cleaners of vehicles and equipment on its $37,340 median: $31,202 retained after tax becomes $30,768 in national-average terms. Where the price adjustment is small, the tax stack is the dominant determinant of the real outcome. The mean of $39,530 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Cleaners of Vehicles and Equipment
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $31,200 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $37,340 |
| Top tenth earn over | $51,990 |
| This salary | $37,340 |
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 | $31,202 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $32,183 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,350 |
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 | $36,120 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,842 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $37,340 as a midpoint for Rhode Island, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $31,200 and the ninetieth is $51,990 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $31,202 take-home in Rhode Island comes from $37,340. 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 409 of 452.
- Two cautions on $30,768, the adjusted value of that $37,340 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 409 of 452 locally.
- The Rhode Island median of $37,340 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $31,200 to $51,990. 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 $31,202, from $37,340, 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 409 of 452 locally, and the state ranks 16 of 51 for it.
- This $30,768 adjusted figure, worked from $37,340, 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 409 of 452 in the state. The occupation ranks 409 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 $39,530, 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?
The range here is narrow. From $31,200 at the bottom tenth to $51,990 at the top, pay for this work clusters rather than spreads.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
The number and the value are different things. Rhode Island costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $30,768 rather than its face figure.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Four deductions, stacked. The federal layer and the two payroll taxes apply wherever you work; Rhode Island then takes its own share, leaving $31,202.
Can I compare this job across every state?
All 51 jurisdictions report this work, which makes the ranking a like-for-like one.
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 $39,530. 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 ($31,200 to $51,990) 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 $30,768 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 $31,202 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.