Cooks, Restaurant in Rhode Island
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$30,567
after federal, FICA and Rhode Island tax
Tax takes
$5,943
16.3% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$30,141
Rhode Island costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Rhode Island — 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
$36,510
Kept after tax
$30,567
Worth in national money
$30,141
State rank
30
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Rhode Island pays cooks, restaurant around $36,510 at the midpoint, 30 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against 452 occupations Rhode Island publishes, cooks, restaurant lands at 421. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $36,510, tax leaves $30,567, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $30,141 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $40,290, since top earners drag the number up.
- For cooks, restaurant the Rhode Island median is $36,510, ranking 30 of 51 states reporting. Mid-band nominal positions are the ones most frequently reordered by the adjustments, because no large wage premium exists to absorb a state's tax or price level.
- Within Rhode Island, this work ranks 421 of 452 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 Rhode Island sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for cooks, restaurant — median $36,510 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $30,567 retained, $30,141 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $40,290 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Cooks, Restaurant
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $31,840 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $36,510 |
| Top tenth earn over | $49,450 |
| This salary | $36,510 |
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 Rhode Island | $30,567 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $31,516 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,291 |
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 | $35,329 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,771 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle, not an offer. Half of cooks, restaurant in Rhode Island earn under $36,510 and half over. The published range runs $31,840 at the tenth percentile to $49,450 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- That $30,567 take-home in Rhode Island comes from $36,510. 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 421 of 452.
- One number stands for prices across all of Rhode Island, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $30,141, the adjusted value of that $36,510 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 421 of 452 in the state.
- Figures are distribution medians for cooks, restaurant in Rhode Island, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $31,840 to $49,450; within-state dispersion of that width routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, so tenure, employer and metropolitan area predict an individual's pay better than geography does.
- Retained pay of $30,567, from $36,510, assumes a single Rhode Island 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 421 of 452 locally, and the state ranks 30 of 51 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Rhode Island, so $30,141 — the adjusted value of that $36,510 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 421 of 452 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 $40,290 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $31,840 at the tenth percentile, $49,450 at the ninetieth.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
The number and the value are different things. Rhode Island costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $30,141 rather than its face figure.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Into four separate taxes, not one. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare apply everywhere, and Rhode Island adds its own income tax on top — which is why $30,567 of this wage survives to your account.
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 Rhode Island is $40,290. 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 ($31,840 to $49,450) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Rhode Island rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Rhode Island's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $30,141 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 $30,567 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Rhode Island 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.