Cooks, Fast Food in Texas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$24,899
after federal, FICA and Texas tax
Tax takes
$3,381
12.0% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$25,622
Texas costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Texas — 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
$28,280
Kept after tax
$24,899
Worth in national money
$25,622
State rank
39
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for cooks, fast food is on the low side in Texas. The middle earner gets $28,280. That is 39 of 51 states, and about 8.45% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against 493 occupations Texas publishes, cooks, fast food lands at 484. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $28,280, tax leaves $24,899, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $25,622 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $29,680, since top earners drag the number up.
- For cooks, fast food, Texas sits in the lower band at $28,280, ranking 39 of 51 and trailing the national median by about 8.45%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Within Texas, this work ranks 484 of 493 occupations by median pay, in the bottom quartile. The within-state position is the more salient one for anyone weighing this job against alternatives available to them locally.
- Because Texas sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for cooks, fast food — median $28,280 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $24,899 retained, $25,622 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $29,680 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Cooks, Fast Food
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $20,800 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $28,280 |
| Top tenth earn over | $39,140 |
| This salary | $28,280 |
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 Texas | $24,899 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Florida | $24,899 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$1,555 |
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
| To match take-home only | $28,280 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$1,996 |
| Prices in Florida | 103 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $28,280 as a midpoint for Texas, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $20,800 and the ninetieth is $39,140 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Texas's $24,899, worked from $28,280. 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 484 of 493.
- One number stands for prices across all of Texas, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $25,622, the adjusted value of that $28,280 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 484 of 493 in the state.
- The Texas median of $28,280 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $20,800 to $39,140. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- The Texas take-home of $24,899, on $28,280 for work ranking 484 of 493 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 484 of 493 in the state.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Texas, so $25,622 — the adjusted value of that $28,280 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 484 of 493 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 $29,680, 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?
Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $20,800 at the tenth percentile, $39,140 at the ninetieth.
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 $25,622.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $24,899 of this wage reaches your account, because Texas takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
Can I compare this job across every state?
Yes for this one. Pay is published in all 51 jurisdictions, so a state-to-state comparison here rests on the same survey everywhere rather than on a patchwork.
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 Texas is $29,680. 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 ($20,800 to $39,140) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Texas rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Texas'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 $25,622 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Texas levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $24,899 reflects the federal layer and FICA alone. Federal income tax and FICA are unchanged; states without a wage income tax generally recover revenue through consumption and property bases instead.
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.