Cooks, Short Order in Tennessee
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$26,454
after federal, FICA and Tennessee tax
Tax takes
$3,756
12.4% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$28,594
Tennessee costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Tennessee — 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
$30,210
Kept after tax
$26,454
Worth in national money
$28,594
State rank
37
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for cooks, short order is on the low side in Tennessee. The middle earner gets $30,210. That is 37 of 49 states, and about 15.8% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against 491 occupations Tennessee publishes, cooks, short order lands at 474. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Tennessee is cheaper than average, and that shows up here. From $30,210 the take-home is $26,454; adjusted for what things actually cost, it goes as far as $28,594 would nationally. The average comes to $31,620, above the middle, thanks to the top of the range.
- For cooks, short order, Tennessee sits in the lower band at $30,210, ranking 37 of 49 and trailing the national median by about 15.8%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Within Tennessee, this work ranks 474 of 491 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.
- Post-tax income for cooks, short order in Tennessee, on $30,210, is $26,454 — equivalent to $28,594 once regional price parity is applied. ⚠️ The adjustment uses a statewide index that describes no particular address; within-state price variation, concentrated in housing, routinely exceeds the difference between two states. At $31,620 the mean overshoots the median — the usual right-skewed shape.
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Pay band: Cooks, Short Order
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $22,880 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $30,210 |
| Top tenth earn over | $39,240 |
| This salary | $30,210 |
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 Tennessee | $26,454 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $26,454 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$1,371 |
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 | $30,210 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$1,658 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 93 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $30,210 as a midpoint for Tennessee, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $22,880 and the ninetieth is $39,240 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- In Tennessee the take-home figure of $26,454, from $30,210, assumes one filer, no dependants, and nothing paid into a pension before tax. Each of those lowers the bill, so treat it as the plain case. City and school-district income taxes are not included either, and in a few states those are real money. It ranks 474 of 491 occupations here.
- One number stands for prices across all of Tennessee, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $28,594, the adjusted value of that $30,210 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 474 of 491 in the state.
- The Tennessee median of $30,210 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $22,880 to $39,240. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- Take-home for Tennessee is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $26,454 from $30,210. Each omitted item reduces taxable income, so the figure is a lower bound on retained pay for this household shape. Municipal and school-district income taxes are excluded, which understates the burden materially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The occupation ranks 474 of 491 locally.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Tennessee, so $28,594 — the adjusted value of that $30,210 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 474 of 491 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 $31,620 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 — $22,880 at the tenth percentile, $39,240 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 $28,594.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $26,454 of this wage reaches your account, because Tennessee takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
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 Tennessee is $31,620. 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 ($22,880 to $39,240) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Tennessee rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Tennessee'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 $28,594 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?
Tennessee levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $26,454 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.
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.