Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders in Tennessee
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$36,690
after federal, FICA and Tennessee tax
Tax takes
$6,260
14.6% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$39,659
Tennessee costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Tennessee — 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
$42,950
Kept after tax
$36,690
Worth in national money
$39,659
State rank
42
of 47 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. Tennessee pays this job a middle wage of $42,950, 42 of 47 states and about 11.52% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Against other work in Tennessee, this sits in the middle: 367 of 491 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Here is where Tennessee does better than its wage suggests. From a median of $42,950 you keep $36,690, and because things cost less here than the national average, that behaves like $39,659 would elsewhere. The average is higher, $45,300, because the best-paid pull it up.
- Tennessee's $42,950 median for crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders places it 42 of 47 states, about 11.52% below national. Because both the tax and price adjustments tend to favor lower-nominal states, this ranking is the least stable of the three reported here.
- Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders ranks 367 of 491 occupations in Tennessee 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.
- After federal, FICA and Tennessee income tax, retained pay for crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders on $42,950 is $36,690. Deflating by the state's price level — below the national average — gives $39,659 in national-average terms. ⚠️ That figure is purchasing power, not a wage, and nobody is paid it; it is what the take-home buys. The mean of $45,300 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.
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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 | $35,760 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $42,950 |
| Top tenth earn over | $57,800 |
| This salary | $42,950 |
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 Tennessee | $36,690 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $36,690 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$1,902 |
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 | $42,950 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$2,300 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 93 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $42,950 as a midpoint for Tennessee, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $35,760 and the ninetieth is $57,800 — 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 Tennessee's $36,690, worked from $42,950. 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 367 of 491.
- Two cautions on $39,659, the adjusted value of that $42,950 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Tennessee. 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 367 of 491 locally.
- The Tennessee median of $42,950 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $35,760 to $57,800. 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 Tennessee take-home of $36,690, on $42,950 for work ranking 367 of 491 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 367 of 491 in the state.
- This $39,659 adjusted figure, worked from $42,950, 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 367 of 491 in the state. The occupation ranks 367 of 491 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $45,300, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $35,760 and the top tenth $57,800, so most people doing this work in Tennessee sit within a fairly tight band.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
A smaller wage in a cheaper place is not automatically less. Adjusted for local prices, this is worth $39,659.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Most of it arrives. $36,690 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?
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 Tennessee is $45,300. 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 ($35,760 to $57,800) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Tennessee rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Tennessee'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 $39,659 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?
Tennessee levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $36,690 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 47 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.