Construction Laborers
What the pay figures show
- Hawaii comes first for construction laborers on every measure. $77,110 on paper. Still first after tax. Still first at $54,010 once you adjust for what things cost. When the headline and the reality agree, say so plainly.
- For construction laborers, Hawaii's $77,110 median is the highest nominally, after tax, and after regional price adjustment, at $54,010. Concordance across all three measures is uncommon and worth stating explicitly, because the absence of a reordering is itself the finding for this occupation.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$47,120
People doing it
1,096,780
Highest paid
$77,110
HI
Best off, really
$54,010
HI, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$35,090
Highest tenth
$78,090
Lowest, really
$33,260
GA
States with data
51
National average
$52,030
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
108.61%
HI, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Pay for this job roughly doubles depending on the state. That is a lot. Some of it is prices, because dear places pay more to make up for costing more. Most of it is not. In real money the range is still $33,260 to $54,010.
- Set the geography aside for a moment. The striking thing about this job is how many people do it: 1,096,780. When the numbers on this page move, they move for a great many households at once.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $47,120 in the middle.
- Interstate variation in construction laborers pay approaches twofold nominally. The standard explanation — that high-wage states are merely high-cost states — is only partly supported here: after tax and price adjustment the range remains $33,260 to $54,010, so the majority of the gap represents a real difference in what the work buys.
- National employment in construction laborers is 1,096,780, placing it among the largest occupations by headcount. Policy changes touching this occupation's effective tax or its regional wage structure therefore have unusually broad incidence.
- 51 jurisdictions report construction laborers, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: Construction Laborers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $35,090 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $47,120 |
| Top tenth earn over | $78,090 |
| This salary | $47,120 |
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 Construction Laborers
The national median for this job
$47,120around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $35,090 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $47,120 |
| Top tenth | $78,090 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Construction Laborers, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Alabama · $36,900 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Hawaii · $77,110 |
| Spread | $40,210 |
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 | $40,620 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $41,801 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| HI | $77,110 | $58,660 | $54,010 |
| OH | $56,080 | $46,414 | $50,554 |
| MO | $56,730 | $46,034 | $50,166 |
| MN | $60,260 | $48,025 | $48,797 |
| WI | $56,100 | $45,344 | $48,707 |
| IL | $60,690 | $48,085 | $48,642 |
| AK | $58,060 | $48,831 | $48,008 |
| NJ | $64,060 | $51,661 | $47,446 |
| ND | $49,070 | $41,608 | $46,976 |
| MA | $63,390 | $50,264 | $46,439 |
| RI | $57,240 | $46,446 | $45,799 |
| MT | $49,830 | $40,633 | $45,026 |
| IA | $48,490 | $39,911 | $44,961 |
| CT | $58,290 | $46,560 | $44,904 |
| WA | $57,720 | $48,558 | $44,728 |
| IN | $50,070 | $40,964 | $44,437 |
| SD | $45,710 | $38,908 | $44,166 |
| CA | $60,270 | $48,798 | $43,345 |
| WY | $46,030 | $39,165 | $43,111 |
| NV | $48,990 | $41,543 | $42,837 |
| NE | $47,260 | $38,707 | $42,828 |
| MI | $49,590 | $40,169 | $42,649 |
| ID | $46,940 | $38,262 | $41,850 |
| NY | $55,930 | $44,697 | $41,529 |
| TN | $45,000 | $38,338 | $41,439 |
| PA | $49,400 | $40,356 | $41,391 |
| KY | $45,710 | $37,426 | $41,369 |
| VT | $48,580 | $39,843 | $41,230 |
| NH | $49,980 | $42,339 | $40,191 |
| KS | $44,840 | $35,995 | $40,010 |
| UT | $46,550 | $37,511 | $39,485 |
| WV | $42,670 | $35,331 | $39,356 |
| NC | $44,720 | $36,837 | $39,130 |
| ME | $46,430 | $37,673 | $38,799 |
| SC | $42,940 | $36,110 | $38,755 |
| CO | $47,900 | $39,268 | $38,733 |
| AZ | $46,590 | $38,853 | $38,428 |
| OR | $50,860 | $39,146 | $37,381 |
| DE | $45,550 | $36,818 | $37,095 |
| OK | $39,360 | $32,535 | $36,852 |
| MD | $46,960 | $38,045 | $36,594 |
| DC | $50,020 | $40,536 | $36,583 |
| AR | $37,630 | $31,482 | $36,392 |
| LA | $38,230 | $32,137 | $36,377 |
| FL | $44,030 | $37,558 | $36,305 |
| TX | $40,620 | $34,818 | $35,830 |
| NM | $38,400 | $32,351 | $35,791 |
| MS | $37,710 | $31,064 | $35,586 |
| VA | $43,560 | $35,436 | $35,173 |
| AL | $36,900 | $30,262 | $33,635 |
| GA | $38,990 | $32,162 | $33,260 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for construction laborers, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $47,120 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 construction laborers. 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, Hawaii keeps the most at $58,660.
- The price adjustment for construction laborers uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Georgia anchors the bottom at $33,260. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- All wage figures for construction laborers are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $47,120. 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 construction laborers 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 Hawaii retains the most, $58,660. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for construction laborers deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.