Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders in Massachusetts
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$41,042
after federal, FICA and Massachusetts tax
Tax takes
$10,108
19.8% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$37,918
Massachusetts costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Massachusetts — 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
$51,150
Kept after tax
$41,042
Worth in national money
$37,918
State rank
12
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- This is a good state for the work. Massachusetts pays this job a middle wage of $51,150, ranking 12 of 50 states and sitting about 6.01% above the national middle.
- Against other work in Massachusetts, this sits in the middle: 347 of 485 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Costs eat into it here. Of $51,150, tax leaves $41,042 — and because Massachusetts is dearer than average, that stretches only as far as $37,918 would nationally. Averages run higher here, $54,200, since top earners drag the number up.
- Massachusetts's median for coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders is $51,150, about 6.01% above the national figure and 12 of 50 states reporting. Whether that premium reaches the worker depends on the two adjustments below, which is the part a wage table cannot tell you.
- Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders ranks 347 of 485 occupations in Massachusetts by median pay, in the middle bands. Within-state and national positions are separate measurements and a job commonly sits in different quartiles on each.
- After tax, $41,042 remains from the Massachusetts median of $51,150 for this occupation. Applying the state's above-average price parity yields $37,918 in national-average terms — the quantity relevant to a relocation decision, and the one absent from essentially every published wage comparison. Mean pay of $54,200 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $36,550 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $51,150 |
| Top tenth earn over | $77,010 |
| This salary | $51,150 |
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 Massachusetts | $41,042 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $43,279 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$6,619 |
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 | $48,365 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$8,005 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 108 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Massachusetts earn less than $51,150. The published range is $36,550 up to $77,010, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- That $41,042 take-home in Massachusetts comes from $51,150. 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 347 of 485.
- One number stands for prices across all of Massachusetts, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $37,918, the adjusted value of that $51,150 median, as a way to compare states fairly, not as a quote for any particular place. The two datasets are also from different years. This job sits at 347 of 485 in the state.
- Reported values are medians; for coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders in Massachusetts the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $36,550 to $77,010. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- Retained pay of $41,042, from $51,150, assumes a single Massachusetts 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 347 of 485 locally, and the state ranks 12 of 50 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Massachusetts, so $37,918 — the adjusted value of that $51,150 median — establishes comparability between states rather than accuracy within one. The wage and parity series are dated independently, each following its own publication cycle, and neither is projected forward. This occupation sits at 347 of 485 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 $54,200 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 $36,550 and the top tenth $77,010 — experience, employer and specialism separate them, and a single figure hides all three.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
Not on its own. Prices in Massachusetts run above the national level, so the same dollars buy less here. Adjusted for that, this pay is worth $37,918 — the wage did not change, only what it covers.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Three of them are federal and one is not. After income tax, Social Security, Medicare and Massachusetts's own levy, $41,042 remains.
Why is this job missing from some states?
Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 50 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.
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 Massachusetts is $54,200. 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 ($36,550) and the ninetieth ($77,010) 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.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Massachusetts's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $37,918 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 $41,042 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Massachusetts 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.
Why does this occupation lack published estimates in every state?
BLS suppresses estimates failing disclosure or reliability criteria. This occupation has published state-level estimates in 50 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.