Crane and Tower Operators in Texas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$60,382
after federal, FICA and Texas tax
Tax takes
$12,898
17.6% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$62,138
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
$73,280
Kept after tax
$60,382
Worth in national money
$62,138
State rank
19
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Texas sits in the middle of the pack for crane and tower operators. The median is $73,280, ranking 19 of 50 states with figures. Close enough to the national middle that where you live matters more than the headline suggests.
- Against other work in Texas, this sits in the middle: 151 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 $73,280, tax leaves $60,382, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $62,138 in comparable terms. Here the average runs under the middle, at $69,650.
- Texas occupies the middle band for crane and tower operators: a median of $73,280, ranking 19 of 50. Where nominal pay is close to the national figure, the tax and price adjustments below carry proportionally more weight in determining the real outcome.
- Crane and tower operators ranks 151 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 crane and tower operators — median $73,280 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $60,382 retained, $62,138 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $69,650 sits under the median, so the lower tail is the longer one.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Crane and Tower Operators
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $42,790 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $73,280 |
| Top tenth earn over | $93,390 |
| This salary | $73,280 |
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 | $60,382 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Florida | $60,382 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$3,770 |
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 | $73,280 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$5,544 |
| Prices in Florida | 103 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $73,280 as a midpoint for Texas, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $42,790 and the ninetieth is $93,390 — 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 $60,382, worked from $73,280. 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 151 of 493.
- The wage data and the price data come from different years. That is how each is published. The price adjustment behind $62,138 uses one figure for the whole of Texas. A city and a rural county there can differ by more than two states do. Out of 493 occupations the state publishes, this one sits at 151.
- The Texas median of $73,280 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $42,790 to $93,390. 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 $60,382, on $73,280 for work ranking 151 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 151 of 493 in the state.
- Wage and price series carry different reference periods, each published on its own schedule. The real-terms figure of $62,138, worked from $73,280, deflates by a statewide parity that conceals substantial intra-state variation, concentrated in housing — so it supports comparison between states rather than the pricing of a move to a particular Texas address, on work sitting at 151 of 493 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 $69,650 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 — $42,790 at the tenth percentile, $93,390 at the ninetieth.
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 $62,138 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Most of it arrives. $60,382 lands after tax, since there is no state income tax on wages here — though the federal floor is identical in every state.
Why is this job missing from some states?
A blank is a suppression, not a zero. 50 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 Texas is $69,650. 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 ($42,790 to $93,390) 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 $62,138 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 $60,382 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 50 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.