Crane and Tower Operators in Maine
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$51,848
after federal, FICA and Maine tax
Tax takes
$13,842
21.1% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$53,398
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
$65,690
Kept after tax
$51,848
Worth in national money
$53,398
State rank
28
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Maine pays crane and tower operators around $65,690 at the midpoint, 28 of 50 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Ordinary, locally speaking. Crane and tower operators ranks 179 among 484 occupations Maine publishes pay for.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $65,690, tax leaves $51,848, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $53,398 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $66,340, since top earners drag the number up.
- For crane and tower operators the Maine median is $65,690, ranking 28 of 50 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.
- Position 179 of 484 in Maine places crane and tower operators in the middle of the state's wage distribution. Because within-state and cross-state rankings measure different things, this figure and the national one above should be read together rather than as a single verdict.
- Because Maine sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for crane and tower operators — median $65,690 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $51,848 retained, $53,398 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $66,340 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Crane and Tower Operators
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $45,310 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $65,690 |
| Top tenth earn over | $90,730 |
| This salary | $65,690 |
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 | $51,848 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $54,962 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$3,162 |
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 | $61,814 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,824 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $65,690 as a midpoint for Maine, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $45,310 and the ninetieth is $90,730 — 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 Maine's $51,848, worked from $65,690. 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 179 of 484.
- Two cautions on $53,398, the adjusted value of that $65,690 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Maine. No actual address matches that. The wage figures and price figures are also from different years. Each is published on its own timetable. This work sits at 179 of 484 locally.
- The Maine median of $65,690 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $45,310 to $90,730. 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 Maine take-home of $51,848, on $65,690 for work ranking 179 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 179 of 484 in the state.
- This $53,398 adjusted figure, worked from $65,690, rests on a state-level price parity averaging over within-state dispersion larger than much of the between-state dispersion. Wage and price vintages differ by publication schedule. The result is directionally sound and not address-specific, for work at 179 of 484 in the state. The occupation ranks 179 of 484 locally.
Questions people ask
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $45,310 and the top tenth $90,730, 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 $53,398 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, $51,848 remains.
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 50 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.
What is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?
The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($45,310 to $90,730) 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 $53,398 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 $51,848 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 50 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.