Court, Municipal, and License Clerks in Maine
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$39,255
after federal, FICA and Maine tax
Tax takes
$9,325
19.2% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$40,429
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
$48,580
Kept after tax
$39,255
Worth in national money
$40,429
State rank
23
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Maine pays court, municipal, and license clerks around $48,580 at the midpoint, 23 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against other work in Maine, this sits in the middle: 331 of 484 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $48,580, tax leaves $39,255, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $40,429 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $52,490, since top earners drag the number up.
- For court, municipal, and license clerks the Maine median is $48,580, ranking 23 of 51 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.
- Court, municipal, and license clerks ranks 331 of 484 occupations in Maine 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 Maine sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for court, municipal, and license clerks — median $48,580 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $39,255 retained, $40,429 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $52,490 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Court, Municipal, and License Clerks
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $40,910 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $48,580 |
| Top tenth earn over | $64,450 |
| This salary | $48,580 |
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 | $39,255 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $41,214 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$1,984 |
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 | $46,142 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,399 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle, not an offer. Half of court, municipal, and license clerks in Maine earn under $48,580 and half over. The published range runs $40,910 at the tenth percentile to $64,450 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Maine's $39,255, worked from $48,580. 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 331 of 484.
- One number stands for prices across all of Maine, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $40,429, the adjusted value of that $48,580 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 331 of 484 in the state.
- Figures are distribution medians for court, municipal, and license clerks in Maine, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $40,910 to $64,450; within-state dispersion of that width routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, so tenure, employer and metropolitan area predict an individual's pay better than geography does.
- The Maine take-home of $39,255, on $48,580 for work ranking 331 of 484 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 331 of 484 in the state.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Maine, so $40,429 — the adjusted value of that $48,580 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 331 of 484 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 $52,490 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 — $40,910 at the tenth percentile, $64,450 at the ninetieth.
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 $40,429 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Three of them are federal and one is not. After income tax, Social Security, Medicare and Maine's own levy, $39,255 remains.
Can I compare this job across every state?
Yes for this one. Pay is published in all 51 jurisdictions, so a state-to-state comparison here rests on the same survey everywhere rather than on a patchwork.
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 $52,490. 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 ($40,910 to $64,450) 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 $40,429 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 $39,255 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.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.