Clergy
What the pay figures show
- The pay leader for clergy is Washington, at $80,830. Tax does not shift it. Prices are the twist. Adjust for what a basket costs and Nevada comes out ahead, worth $62,720. Worth knowing before anyone packs.
- Nominal and post-tax rankings agree for clergy: Washington leads at $80,830 on both. Applying regional price parities separates them, promoting Nevada to $62,720 in real terms. Price level, not tax, is the operative variable for this occupation — and it is the one absent from essentially every published wage comparison.
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
$60,810
People doing it
57,200
Highest paid
$80,830
WA
Best off, really
$62,720
NV, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$37,860
Highest tenth
$98,890
Lowest, really
$43,375
NY
States with data
50
National average
$66,860
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
96.98%
NV, 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 $43,375 to $62,720. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- Only 57,200 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- Some states are missing here. There are figures for 50 jurisdictions, averaging $60,810 in the middle. A blank means nobody published a number, not that the job pays nothing there. Washington leads the published set.
- Geographic dispersion in clergy is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $43,375 through $62,720. 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.
- National employment in clergy is 57,200. ⚠️ At this headcount the state-level medians rest on comparatively thin samples, and year-to-year movement in any one state reflects sampling as much as wages.
- Coverage for clergy runs to 50 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: Clergy
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $37,860 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $60,810 |
| Top tenth earn over | $98,890 |
| This salary | $60,810 |
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 Clergy
The national median for this job
$60,810around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $37,860 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $60,810 |
| Top tenth | $98,890 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Clergy, state by state
The national median for this job
50states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | West Virginia · $48,460 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Washington · $80,830 |
| Spread | $32,370 |
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 | $59,480 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $61,209 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NV | $73,910 | $60,826 | $62,720 |
| WA | $80,830 | $65,694 | $60,513 |
| ND | $60,680 | $50,936 | $57,508 |
| NM | $64,100 | $51,837 | $57,351 |
| SD | $59,860 | $50,278 | $57,072 |
| WY | $61,590 | $51,668 | $56,873 |
| IA | $60,630 | $49,204 | $55,431 |
| VT | $64,950 | $52,191 | $54,008 |
| OK | $59,110 | $47,515 | $53,820 |
| CA | $77,710 | $60,355 | $53,610 |
| MT | $59,550 | $47,986 | $53,174 |
| OH | $59,160 | $48,805 | $53,157 |
| WI | $60,950 | $48,990 | $52,622 |
| KY | $58,920 | $47,578 | $52,591 |
| ME | $64,340 | $50,854 | $52,375 |
| ID | $59,570 | $47,741 | $52,218 |
| TN | $57,260 | $48,188 | $52,087 |
| MA | $72,190 | $56,326 | $52,039 |
| IN | $59,020 | $47,891 | $51,952 |
| MO | $58,740 | $47,554 | $51,823 |
| NH | $65,200 | $54,568 | $51,800 |
| NE | $57,520 | $46,484 | $51,434 |
| TX | $59,480 | $49,972 | $51,425 |
| NC | $59,600 | $48,199 | $51,200 |
| CO | $63,700 | $51,269 | $50,570 |
| DE | $63,260 | $50,065 | $50,442 |
| LA | $54,140 | $44,444 | $50,307 |
| AZ | $61,900 | $50,772 | $50,217 |
| GA | $60,530 | $48,394 | $50,046 |
| SC | $56,630 | $46,243 | $49,629 |
| MN | $61,230 | $48,738 | $49,522 |
| IL | $61,820 | $48,937 | $49,504 |
| CT | $63,470 | $50,437 | $48,643 |
| MS | $52,450 | $42,318 | $48,478 |
| PA | $58,300 | $47,234 | $48,445 |
| NJ | $65,500 | $52,738 | $48,436 |
| MI | $56,490 | $45,420 | $48,224 |
| RI | $59,660 | $48,300 | $47,627 |
| MD | $61,620 | $49,128 | $47,255 |
| AR | $49,070 | $40,251 | $46,528 |
| DC | $64,800 | $51,481 | $46,462 |
| FL | $56,940 | $47,931 | $46,332 |
| AK | $55,780 | $46,999 | $46,207 |
| KS | $52,130 | $41,446 | $46,069 |
| OR | $63,140 | $47,938 | $45,777 |
| AL | $50,180 | $40,348 | $44,846 |
| WV | $48,460 | $39,739 | $44,266 |
| HI | $61,050 | $48,037 | $44,229 |
| VA | $55,430 | $44,291 | $43,962 |
| NY | $58,580 | $46,683 | $43,375 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for clergy, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $60,810 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 clergy. 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 $65,694.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for clergy. Inside any state, a big city costs far more than a small town, so this is a fair way to compare states with each other and a poor way to price a specific move. The wage figures and the price figures are also from different years. At the bottom of the range sits New York, on $43,375.
- All wage figures for clergy are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $60,810. 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 clergy 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, $65,694. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for clergy rest on statewide regional price parities, which average over intra-state variation that is itself larger than much of the interstate variation. They support comparison between states and not the pricing of an individual relocation; New York anchors the distribution at $43,375. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.