Correctional Officers and Jailers in Texas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$44,500
after federal, FICA and Texas tax
Tax takes
$8,170
15.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$45,794
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
$52,670
Kept after tax
$44,500
Worth in national money
$45,794
State rank
32
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Texas pays this job around $52,670 at the midpoint, 32 of 49 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against other work in Texas, this sits in the middle: 254 of 493 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $52,670, tax leaves $44,500, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $45,794 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $53,330, since top earners drag the number up.
- For correctional officers and jailers the Texas median is $52,670, ranking 32 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.
- Correctional officers and jailers ranks 254 of 493 occupations in Texas by median pay, in the middle bands. Within-state and national positions are separate measurements and a job commonly sits in different quartiles on each.
- Because Texas sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for correctional officers and jailers — median $52,670 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $44,500 retained, $45,794 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $53,330 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.
Pay band: Correctional Officers and Jailers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $44,870 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $52,670 |
| Top tenth earn over | $60,550 |
| This salary | $52,670 |
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 | $44,500 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Florida | $44,500 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$2,779 |
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 | $52,670 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$3,577 |
| Prices in Florida | 103 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $52,670 as a midpoint for Texas, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $44,870 and the ninetieth is $60,550 — 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 $44,500, worked from $52,670. 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 254 of 493.
- One number stands for prices across all of Texas, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $45,794, the adjusted value of that $52,670 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 254 of 493 in the state.
- The Texas median of $52,670 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $44,870 to $60,550. 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 $44,500, on $52,670 for work ranking 254 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 254 of 493 in the state.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Texas, so $45,794 — the adjusted value of that $52,670 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 254 of 493 locally.
Questions people ask
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
The range here is narrow. From $44,870 at the bottom tenth to $60,550 at the top, pay for this work clusters rather than spreads.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Texas sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $45,794 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $44,500 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.
Why is this job missing from some states?
The survey withholds small samples rather than publish an unreliable number. Pay appears for 49 states here, and a missing state means too few reports, not no jobs.
What is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?
The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($44,870 to $60,550) 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 $45,794 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 $44,500 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.