Cooks, Short Order in Kansas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$22,934
after federal, FICA and Kansas tax
Tax takes
$4,466
16.3% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$25,492
Kansas costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Kansas — 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
$27,400
Kept after tax
$22,934
Worth in national money
$25,492
State rank
43
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for cooks, short order is on the low side in Kansas. The middle earner gets $27,400. That is 43 of 49 states, and about 23.63% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against 488 occupations Kansas publishes, cooks, short order lands at 483. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cheaper living works in this state's favor. From $27,400 you keep $22,934 after tax, and local prices stretch that to the equivalent of $25,492 at national prices. Averages run higher here, $29,600, since top earners drag the number up.
- For cooks, short order, Kansas sits in the lower band at $27,400, ranking 43 of 49 and trailing the national median by about 23.63%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Within Kansas, this work ranks 483 of 488 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.
- Retained pay in Kansas is $22,934 after the full tax stack, from $27,400. Because the state's price level runs below the national average, the price-adjusted equivalent is $25,492 — a real-terms figure describing purchasing power rather than compensation, and not a number that appears on any pay stub. Mean pay of $29,600 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Cooks, Short Order
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $24,110 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $27,400 |
| Top tenth earn over | $36,570 |
| This salary | $27,400 |
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 Kansas | $22,934 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $24,174 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$615 |
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 | $25,894 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$726 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 90 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $27,400 as a midpoint for Kansas, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $24,110 and the ninetieth is $36,570 — 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 Kansas's $22,934, worked from $27,400. 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 483 of 488.
- Two cautions on $25,492, the adjusted value of that $27,400 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Kansas. No actual address matches that. The wage figures and price figures are also from different years. Each is published on its own timetable. This work sits at 483 of 488 locally.
- The Kansas median of $27,400 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $24,110 to $36,570. 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 Kansas take-home of $22,934, on $27,400 for work ranking 483 of 488 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 483 of 488 in the state.
- This $25,492 adjusted figure, worked from $27,400, rests on a state-level price parity averaging over within-state dispersion larger than much of the between-state dispersion. Wage and price vintages differ by publication schedule. The result is directionally sound and not address-specific, for work at 483 of 488 in the state. The occupation ranks 483 of 488 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 $29,600 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 $24,110 and the top tenth $36,570, so most people doing this work in Kansas sit within a fairly tight band.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Kansas sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $25,492 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
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 Kansas adds its own income tax on top — which is why $22,934 of this wage survives to your account.
Why is this job missing from some states?
A blank is a suppression, not a zero. 49 states have a published figure for this work; the others had too few responses to release one.
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 Kansas is $29,600. 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 ($24,110 to $36,570) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Kansas rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Kansas'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 $25,492 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 $22,934 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Kansas 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 49 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.