Data Entry Keyers
What the pay figures show
- Two answers for data entry keyers. Best paid: the District of Columbia, at $55,170. Tax does not change that. Best off: North Dakota, at $46,278 once local prices count. Tax was not what separated them. Rent was.
- The District of Columbia's $55,170 median for data entry keyers survives the tax adjustment intact, so state income tax is not a differentiator in this occupation's geography. It does not survive price deflation: North Dakota takes the top position at $46,278. Housing is where regional price variation concentrates, which is why the reordering appears at this step and not the previous one.
Compare this career across states
Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.
Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$41,340
People doing it
127,080
Highest paid
$55,170
DC
Best off, really
$46,278
ND, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$31,200
Highest tenth
$58,790
Lowest, really
$30,784
MD
States with data
49
National average
$43,310
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.57%
ND, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Pay for this job is fairly steady around the country. Count tax and local prices and the states bunch closer still, from $30,784 to $46,278. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- About 127,080 Americans work in this job, on a middle wage of $41,340. Big enough that where you live changes the arithmetic.
- This job is not published everywhere — 49 jurisdictions have a figure, with $41,340 in the middle. Where one is missing, it was never released. The District of Columbia tops the ones that are.
- Geographic dispersion in data entry keyers is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $30,784 through $46,278. Where nominal spread is this contained, relocation decisions in the occupation turn on non-wage factors, because the wage differential does not survive the adjustments in a form large enough to drive them.
- With 127,080 workers, data entry keyers sits in the middle of the BLS headcount distribution. The state-level spread described above therefore applies to a meaningful population rather than a niche one.
- 49 jurisdictions carry a published median for data entry keyers. ⚠️ Suppression is not random: it correlates with small state-level samples, so the reported set skews toward larger employers of this occupation.
Pay band: Data Entry Keyers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $31,200 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $41,340 |
| Top tenth earn over | $58,790 |
| This salary | $41,340 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Data Entry Keyers
The national median for this job
$41,340around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $31,200 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $41,340 |
| Top tenth | $58,790 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Data Entry Keyers, state by state
The national median for this job
49states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Arkansas · $33,860 |
|---|---|
| Highest | District of Columbia · $55,170 |
| Spread | $21,310 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $38,880 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $40,010 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| ND | $48,300 | $40,989 | $46,278 |
| NM | $49,810 | $41,027 | $45,391 |
| WY | $45,870 | $39,037 | $42,969 |
| IA | $43,640 | $36,198 | $40,779 |
| ME | $48,190 | $38,968 | $40,133 |
| DC | $55,170 | $44,365 | $40,039 |
| UT | $47,180 | $37,990 | $39,988 |
| MT | $42,340 | $34,967 | $38,747 |
| ID | $42,810 | $35,162 | $38,460 |
| TN | $40,490 | $34,714 | $37,522 |
| WA | $47,480 | $40,330 | $37,149 |
| OH | $40,220 | $34,107 | $37,149 |
| VT | $43,280 | $35,762 | $37,007 |
| MN | $44,280 | $36,209 | $36,791 |
| RI | $44,980 | $37,055 | $36,539 |
| IN | $40,550 | $33,595 | $36,444 |
| NE | $39,600 | $32,900 | $36,404 |
| OK | $38,590 | $31,951 | $36,190 |
| AZ | $43,200 | $36,214 | $35,818 |
| CO | $43,910 | $36,238 | $35,744 |
| MA | $47,560 | $38,336 | $35,419 |
| LA | $36,920 | $31,124 | $35,230 |
| HI | $47,630 | $38,255 | $35,223 |
| NH | $43,440 | $37,084 | $35,202 |
| GA | $41,270 | $33,880 | $35,036 |
| IL | $42,840 | $34,626 | $35,027 |
| NC | $39,610 | $32,935 | $34,985 |
| NV | $39,260 | $33,725 | $34,776 |
| SC | $38,070 | $32,310 | $34,676 |
| CA | $47,010 | $38,936 | $34,585 |
| KS | $38,290 | $31,098 | $34,567 |
| TX | $38,880 | $33,420 | $34,392 |
| AK | $40,700 | $34,882 | $34,294 |
| WI | $38,170 | $31,821 | $34,181 |
| KY | $36,870 | $30,632 | $33,860 |
| NY | $44,860 | $36,400 | $33,820 |
| SD | $34,320 | $29,756 | $33,777 |
| WV | $35,900 | $30,112 | $33,543 |
| MI | $38,080 | $31,410 | $33,349 |
| AR | $33,860 | $28,592 | $33,052 |
| PA | $38,810 | $32,172 | $32,997 |
| MS | $34,540 | $28,643 | $32,813 |
| NJ | $42,470 | $35,506 | $32,609 |
| FL | $38,880 | $33,420 | $32,305 |
| AL | $35,130 | $28,918 | $32,142 |
| VA | $38,900 | $31,960 | $31,722 |
| DE | $37,810 | $31,029 | $31,262 |
| CT | $38,560 | $31,948 | $30,811 |
| MD | $38,970 | $32,005 | $30,784 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for data entry keyers as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $41,340, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
- The take-home numbers here use the simplest possible household: one filer for data entry keyers, no children, no pension contributions, standard deduction. Real life usually reduces the tax bill below this. City and school-district income taxes are left out, and in Ohio or Pennsylvania that is a real omission. The best after-tax state here is the District of Columbia, at $44,365.
- The price adjustment for data entry keyers uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Maryland anchors the bottom at $30,784. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- These are distribution medians for data entry keyers, with a national value of $41,340. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
- Retained-pay figures for data entry keyers model a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax deferrals — deliberately the simplest household, so the comparison across states isolates geography rather than personal circumstances. Local income taxes are outside the model; Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland residents should expect a meaningfully lower figure than $44,365, which leads in the District of Columbia.
- Real-terms figures for data entry keyers deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.