Counter and Rental Clerks
What the pay figures show
- Two answers for counter and rental clerks. Best paid: the District of Columbia, at $53,760. Tax does not change that. Best off: North Dakota, at $42,939 once local prices count. Tax was not what separated them. Rent was.
- The District of Columbia's $53,760 median for counter and rental clerks survives the tax adjustment intact, so state income tax is not a differentiator in this occupation's geography. It does not survive price deflation: North Dakota takes the top position at $42,939. Housing is where regional price variation concentrates, which is why the reordering appears at this step and not the previous one.
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 by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$41,300
People doing it
400,810
Highest paid
$53,760
DC
Best off, really
$42,939
ND, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$29,800
Highest tenth
$65,370
Lowest, really
$31,162
MD
States with data
51
National average
$45,700
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.57%
ND, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Nationally, this job pays within a fairly narrow band. Adjust for tax and for local prices and the band tightens again, to between $31,162 and $42,939. Geography is not the main lever on pay here.
- Roughly 400,810 people hold this job nationally, earning $41,300 in the middle. A solid, ordinary-sized job.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $41,300 in the middle.
- Wages for counter and rental clerks cluster comparatively tightly across states, and the clustering strengthens after tax and price deflation — a real range of $31,162 to $42,939. Occupation-level factors such as specialisation and employer type therefore explain more of an individual's pay here than location does.
- 400,810 are employed nationally in counter and rental clerks, placing it well inside the reported range without approaching the highest-headcount occupations.
- 51 jurisdictions report counter and rental clerks, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: Counter and Rental Clerks
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $29,800 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $41,300 |
| Top tenth earn over | $65,370 |
| This salary | $41,300 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Counter and Rental Clerks
The national median for this job
$41,300around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $29,800 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $41,300 |
| Top tenth | $65,370 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Counter and Rental Clerks, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | West Virginia · $34,780 |
|---|---|
| Highest | District of Columbia · $53,760 |
| Spread | $18,980 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $37,250 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $38,333 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| ND | $44,620 | $38,032 | $42,939 |
| WY | $43,860 | $37,422 | $41,191 |
| VT | $48,430 | $39,727 | $41,111 |
| WI | $45,720 | $37,516 | $40,297 |
| MT | $43,900 | $36,147 | $40,055 |
| ME | $46,870 | $37,996 | $39,132 |
| DC | $53,760 | $43,317 | $39,093 |
| NH | $47,250 | $40,145 | $38,108 |
| RI | $46,360 | $38,112 | $37,581 |
| CO | $46,240 | $38,008 | $37,490 |
| WA | $47,820 | $40,603 | $37,401 |
| MN | $44,850 | $36,636 | $37,225 |
| NJ | $48,900 | $40,317 | $37,028 |
| IA | $38,960 | $32,616 | $36,743 |
| VA | $45,540 | $36,913 | $36,639 |
| AK | $43,450 | $37,092 | $36,467 |
| AZ | $43,920 | $36,774 | $36,372 |
| PA | $42,910 | $35,341 | $36,247 |
| OH | $38,590 | $32,842 | $35,771 |
| SD | $36,400 | $31,427 | $35,674 |
| KY | $38,990 | $32,261 | $35,661 |
| ID | $39,370 | $32,580 | $35,636 |
| TN | $37,960 | $32,681 | $35,325 |
| KS | $39,090 | $31,696 | $35,232 |
| OK | $37,160 | $30,866 | $34,962 |
| NY | $46,270 | $37,456 | $34,802 |
| NV | $39,140 | $33,629 | $34,676 |
| MO | $37,920 | $31,804 | $34,659 |
| MI | $39,350 | $32,376 | $34,375 |
| MS | $36,160 | $29,880 | $34,230 |
| SC | $37,340 | $31,738 | $34,062 |
| AR | $34,940 | $29,420 | $34,009 |
| NC | $38,230 | $31,881 | $33,866 |
| NE | $36,450 | $30,513 | $33,762 |
| LA | $34,910 | $29,569 | $33,470 |
| NM | $35,580 | $30,206 | $33,419 |
| CA | $45,010 | $37,409 | $33,229 |
| IN | $36,680 | $30,600 | $33,194 |
| HI | $44,420 | $35,907 | $33,061 |
| TX | $37,250 | $32,110 | $33,044 |
| MA | $44,070 | $35,707 | $32,989 |
| GA | $38,590 | $31,860 | $32,948 |
| WV | $34,780 | $29,247 | $32,580 |
| OR | $43,820 | $34,105 | $32,568 |
| UT | $37,550 | $30,680 | $32,295 |
| AL | $35,170 | $28,949 | $32,176 |
| DE | $38,600 | $31,620 | $31,858 |
| FL | $37,870 | $32,609 | $31,520 |
| CT | $39,490 | $32,608 | $31,448 |
| IL | $38,140 | $31,082 | $31,442 |
| MD | $39,490 | $32,398 | $31,162 |
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle of the range, not a starting salary and not an offer. Half of counter and rental clerks earn less than the figures here and half earn more, and experience, employer and city move an individual a long way from the middle. Nationally the middle earns $41,300.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for counter and rental clerks. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, the District of Columbia keeps the most at $43,317.
- Levelling out prices for counter and rental clerks is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — Maryland sits at the bottom on $31,162.
- Figures are medians of the published wage distribution for counter and rental clerks, not entry-level or offer wages. The national median is $41,300, with half of workers below it; dispersion within a state routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, driven by tenure, employer size, sector and metropolitan area. An individual's position in the distribution is not predictable from geography alone.
- The household modeled for counter and rental clerks is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis the District of Columbia retains the most, $43,317. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- The price deflation applied to counter and rental clerks uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is Maryland at $31,162. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Maryland anchors the bottom at $31,162 — and the two source series are dated independently.