Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders in Maine
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$43,303
after federal, FICA and Maine tax
Tax takes
$10,777
19.9% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$44,598
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
$54,080
Kept after tax
$43,303
Worth in national money
$44,598
State rank
13
of 47 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for this job is strong here. Maine's middle earner gets $54,080, putting the state 13 of 47 — about 11.41% ahead of the national figure.
- Against other work in Maine, this sits in the middle: 285 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 $54,080, tax leaves $43,303, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $44,598 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $59,700, since top earners drag the number up.
- For crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders, Maine sits in the upper band nationally: a median of $54,080, ranking 13 of 47 and running about 11.41% above the national midpoint. Nominal advantage of this size is usually, though not always, large enough to survive the state's own tax and price levels.
- Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders ranks 285 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 crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders — median $54,080 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $43,303 retained, $44,598 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $59,700 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $40,580 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $54,080 |
| Top tenth earn over | $86,690 |
| This salary | $54,080 |
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 | $43,303 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $45,633 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,362 |
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 | $51,180 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,857 |
| 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 crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders in Maine earn under $54,080 and half over. The published range runs $40,580 at the tenth percentile to $86,690 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- In Maine the take-home figure of $43,303, from $54,080, assumes one filer, no dependants, and nothing paid into a pension before tax. Each of those lowers the bill, so treat it as the plain case. City and school-district income taxes are not included either, and in a few states those are real money. It ranks 285 of 484 occupations here.
- One number stands for prices across all of Maine, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $44,598, the adjusted value of that $54,080 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 285 of 484 in the state.
- Figures are distribution medians for crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders in Maine, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $40,580 to $86,690; 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.
- Take-home for Maine is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $43,303 from $54,080. Each omitted item reduces taxable income, so the figure is a lower bound on retained pay for this household shape. Municipal and school-district income taxes are excluded, which understates the burden materially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The occupation ranks 285 of 484 locally.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Maine, so $44,598 — the adjusted value of that $54,080 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 285 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 $59,700 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $40,580, the highest tenth $86,690, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
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 $44,598 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Into four separate taxes, not one. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare apply everywhere, and Maine adds its own income tax on top — which is why $43,303 of this wage survives to your account.
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 47 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.
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 $59,700. 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 drives the percentile dispersion in this occupation?
Dispersion between the tenth percentile ($40,580) and the ninetieth ($86,690) exceeds the family median dispersion. SOC codes aggregate roles differing in seniority, industry and specialisation, and BLS does not disaggregate below the detailed occupation level, so within-title variance is not separable from the published series.
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 $44,598 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 $43,303 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 47 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.