Curators in Texas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$50,382
after federal, FICA and Texas tax
Tax takes
$9,608
16.0% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$51,847
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
$59,990
Kept after tax
$50,382
Worth in national money
$51,847
State rank
28
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Texas pays curators around $59,990 at the midpoint, 28 of 49 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against other work in Texas, this sits in the middle: 215 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 $59,990, tax leaves $50,382, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $51,847 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $64,880, since top earners drag the number up.
- For curators the Texas median is $59,990, ranking 28 of 49 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.
- Curators ranks 215 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 curators — median $59,990 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $50,382 retained, $51,847 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $64,880 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Curators
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $43,040 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $59,990 |
| Top tenth earn over | $93,860 |
| This salary | $59,990 |
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 | $50,382 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Florida | $50,382 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$3,146 |
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 | $59,990 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$4,050 |
| Prices in Florida | 103 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 curators in Texas earn under $59,990 and half over. The published range runs $43,040 at the tenth percentile to $93,860 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 Texas's $50,382, worked from $59,990. 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 215 of 493.
- One number stands for prices across all of Texas, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $51,847, the adjusted value of that $59,990 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 215 of 493 in the state.
- Figures are distribution medians for curators in Texas, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $43,040 to $93,860; 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 Texas take-home of $50,382, on $59,990 for work ranking 215 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 215 of 493 in the state.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Texas, so $51,847 — the adjusted value of that $59,990 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 215 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 $64,880 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 $43,040, the highest tenth $93,860, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
Further than the number implies. Texas is cheaper than the national average, so this take-home behaves like $51,847 in national terms.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
No. $50,382 survives, because Texas levies no wage income tax. The federal share does not change with the state you work in.
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 49 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 Texas is $64,880. 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 ($43,040) and the ninetieth ($93,860) 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?
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 $51,847 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 $50,382 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 49 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.