Cooks, Short Order in Maine
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$29,451
after federal, FICA and Maine tax
Tax takes
$5,909
16.7% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$30,332
Maine costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Maine — 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
$35,360
Kept after tax
$29,451
Worth in national money
$30,332
State rank
23
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Maine pays cooks, short order around $35,360 at the midpoint, 23 of 49 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against 484 occupations Maine publishes, cooks, short order lands at 477. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $35,360, tax leaves $29,451, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $30,332 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $36,730, since top earners drag the number up.
- For cooks, short order the Maine median is $35,360, ranking 23 of 49 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 Maine, this work ranks 477 of 484 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 Maine sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for cooks, short order — median $35,360 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $29,451 retained, $30,332 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $36,730 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 | $32,150 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $35,360 |
| Top tenth earn over | $41,600 |
| This salary | $35,360 |
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 Maine | $29,451 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $30,592 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$1,149 |
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 | $33,941 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$1,390 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $35,360 as a midpoint for Maine, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $32,150 and the ninetieth is $41,600 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $29,451 take-home in Maine comes from $35,360. 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 477 of 484.
- One number stands for prices across all of Maine, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $30,332, the adjusted value of that $35,360 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 477 of 484 in the state.
- The Maine median of $35,360 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $32,150 to $41,600. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- Retained pay of $29,451, from $35,360, assumes a single Maine 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 477 of 484 locally, and the state ranks 23 of 49 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Maine, so $30,332 — the adjusted value of that $35,360 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 477 of 484 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
It is the midpoint, not the average. The average here is $36,730, dragged up by high earners; the middle figure describes a typical worker better.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $32,150 and the top tenth $41,600, so most people doing this work in Maine sit within a fairly tight band.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Maine sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $30,332 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Four deductions, stacked. The federal layer and the two payroll taxes apply wherever you work; Maine then takes its own share, leaving $29,451.
Why is this job missing from some states?
Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 49 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.
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 Maine is $36,730. 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 ($32,150 to $41,600) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Maine rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Maine'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 $30,332 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 $29,451 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Maine 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.