Construction and Building Inspectors in Alabama

A hard hat, safety glasses and tool belt beside timber house framing.

May 2025 wages · tax year 2026

You keep

$48,793

after federal, FICA and Alabama tax

Tax takes

$12,507

20.4% of the whole

Worth, in national money

$54,233

Alabama costs less than average

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

$61,300

Kept after tax

$48,793

Worth in national money

$54,233

State rank

45

of 51 states

What this pays, and what it is worth

  • The nominal figure here is modest. Alabama pays construction and building inspectors a middle wage of $61,300, 45 of 51 states and about 17.93% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
  • Against other work in Alabama, this sits in the middle: 182 of 482 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
  • Alabama is cheaper than average, and that shows up here. From $61,300 the take-home is $48,793; adjusted for what things actually cost, it goes as far as $54,233 would nationally. The average comes to $64,130, above the middle, thanks to the top of the range.
  • Alabama's $61,300 median for construction and building inspectors places it 45 of 51 states, about 17.93% below national. Because both the tax and price adjustments tend to favor lower-nominal states, this ranking is the least stable of the three reported here.
  • Construction and building inspectors ranks 182 of 482 occupations in Alabama 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.
  • Post-tax income for construction and building inspectors in Alabama, on $61,300, is $48,793 — equivalent to $54,233 once regional price parity is applied. ⚠️ The adjustment uses a statewide index that describes no particular address; within-state price variation, concentrated in housing, routinely exceeds the difference between two states. At $64,130 the mean overshoots the median — the usual right-skewed shape.

Compare this career across states

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Pay band: Construction and Building Inspectors

The state median for this job

50thpercentile, roughly
Lowest tenth earn under$46,010
Half earn under$61,300
Top tenth earn over$85,770
This salary$61,300

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

Compare with
+$2,641take-home per year in Texas
Take-home in Alabama$48,793
Take-home in Texas$51,435
Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity−$1,303

The raise and the real gain point in opposite directions here.

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

Moving to
$0$62,876
$62,876in Texas, for the same life
To match take-home only$58,013
Raise you would need+$1,576
Prices in Texas97 vs 90

State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.

Sources and assumptions
  • Half the people doing this work in Alabama earn less than $61,300. The published range is $46,010 up to $85,770, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
  • One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Alabama's $48,793, worked from $61,300. That is on purpose. It lets states be compared with each other, not with each other's family circumstances. Local city taxes are left out. Locally this work ranks 182 of 482.
  • One number stands for prices across all of Alabama, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $54,233, the adjusted value of that $61,300 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 182 of 482 in the state.
  • Reported values are medians; for construction and building inspectors in Alabama the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $46,010 to $85,770. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
  • The Alabama take-home of $48,793, on $61,300 for work ranking 182 of 482 locally, models the simplest household deliberately: holding it constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful. It also means the absolute figure overstates liability for most real filers, and municipal income taxes are outside the model entirely. The occupation ranks 182 of 482 in the state.
  • Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Alabama, so $54,233 — the adjusted value of that $61,300 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 182 of 482 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 $64,130 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.

How much does pay for this job actually vary?

Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $46,010 and the top tenth $85,770, so most people doing this work in Alabama sit within a fairly tight band.

What does this pay actually buy where I live?

A smaller wage in a cheaper place is not automatically less. Adjusted for local prices, this is worth $54,233.

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 Alabama's own levy, $48,793 remains.

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 Alabama is $64,130. 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 ($46,010 to $85,770) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Alabama rather than a national figure.

What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?

Alabama'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 $54,233 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 $48,793 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Alabama 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.