Diagnostic Medical Sonographers
What the pay figures show
- California pays this job the most on paper: $128,530. Two things happen before that money is yours. State tax takes a share, which puts Washington in front. Then local prices decide what is left, and Wyoming wins at $87,660. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For diagnostic medical sonographers, California's $128,530 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote Washington; regional price parity then promotes Wyoming, whose $87,660 real figure is the highest purchasing power available in this occupation. Nominal wage comparisons across states are therefore a poor guide to relocation, and the error compounds rather than cancels.
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
$96,590
People doing it
90,160
Highest paid
$128,530
CA
Best off, really
$87,660
WY, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$67,820
Highest tenth
$129,370
Lowest, really
$59,863
AL
States with data
51
National average
$97,240
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
90.85%
WY, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Nationally, this job pays within a fairly narrow band. Adjust for tax and for local prices and the band tightens again, to between $59,863 and $87,660. Geography is not the main lever on pay here.
- Only 90,160 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $96,590 in the middle.
- Wages for diagnostic medical sonographers cluster comparatively tightly across states, and the clustering strengthens after tax and price deflation — a real range of $59,863 to $87,660. Occupation-level factors such as specialisation and employer type therefore explain more of an individual's pay here than location does.
- National employment in diagnostic medical sonographers is 90,160. ⚠️ At this headcount the state-level medians rest on comparatively thin samples, and year-to-year movement in any one state reflects sampling as much as wages.
- 51 jurisdictions report diagnostic medical sonographers, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: Diagnostic Medical Sonographers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $67,820 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $96,590 |
| Top tenth earn over | $129,370 |
| This salary | $96,590 |
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 Diagnostic Medical Sonographers
The national median for this job
$96,590around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $67,820 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $96,590 |
| Top tenth | $129,370 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Diagnostic Medical Sonographers, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Alabama · $68,180 |
|---|---|
| Highest | California · $128,530 |
| Spread | $60,350 |
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 | $92,580 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $95,271 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WY | $100,650 | $79,637 | $87,660 |
| WA | $121,340 | $94,193 | $86,764 |
| MT | $101,000 | $75,538 | $83,704 |
| MO | $100,130 | $75,503 | $82,281 |
| AK | $105,670 | $83,169 | $81,767 |
| ID | $99,920 | $74,681 | $81,686 |
| WI | $102,090 | $76,045 | $81,683 |
| HI | $124,430 | $88,300 | $81,301 |
| CA | $128,530 | $91,255 | $81,057 |
| VT | $104,100 | $77,304 | $79,996 |
| CO | $108,410 | $81,035 | $79,930 |
| OR | $120,220 | $83,436 | $79,674 |
| KS | $96,310 | $71,499 | $79,474 |
| UT | $100,100 | $74,796 | $78,731 |
| NV | $95,980 | $76,352 | $78,730 |
| NH | $103,760 | $81,825 | $77,674 |
| KY | $91,230 | $69,935 | $77,303 |
| MN | $102,850 | $75,715 | $76,932 |
| ND | $84,340 | $67,778 | $76,523 |
| AZ | $100,040 | $77,110 | $76,267 |
| TX | $92,580 | $73,960 | $76,110 |
| IL | $100,660 | $74,806 | $75,673 |
| IA | $86,480 | $66,994 | $75,472 |
| SD | $80,820 | $65,687 | $74,564 |
| NM | $87,210 | $67,240 | $74,392 |
| CT | $103,230 | $76,509 | $73,787 |
| AR | $81,500 | $63,608 | $73,529 |
| DE | $98,530 | $72,874 | $73,422 |
| MA | $107,480 | $79,388 | $73,346 |
| DC | $112,020 | $81,083 | $73,177 |
| OK | $83,670 | $64,427 | $72,976 |
| ME | $95,230 | $70,658 | $72,770 |
| LA | $80,710 | $63,574 | $71,962 |
| IN | $85,040 | $66,176 | $71,787 |
| MD | $99,210 | $74,275 | $71,443 |
| OH | $82,870 | $65,566 | $71,414 |
| NY | $103,920 | $76,847 | $71,402 |
| TN | $80,640 | $65,560 | $70,864 |
| VA | $95,660 | $71,387 | $70,856 |
| NE | $82,670 | $63,930 | $70,738 |
| NJ | $103,150 | $77,015 | $70,732 |
| NC | $86,010 | $66,415 | $70,550 |
| RI | $92,820 | $71,068 | $70,079 |
| SC | $83,290 | $64,218 | $68,920 |
| MS | $76,520 | $59,693 | $68,383 |
| MI | $82,490 | $63,607 | $67,534 |
| WV | $76,820 | $60,244 | $67,107 |
| PA | $82,710 | $64,477 | $66,131 |
| GA | $83,250 | $63,841 | $66,020 |
| FL | $82,940 | $67,178 | $64,937 |
| AL | $68,180 | $53,859 | $59,863 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for this job, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $96,590 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for this job. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Washington keeps the most at $94,193.
- Levelling out prices for this job is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — Alabama sits at the bottom on $59,863.
- All wage figures for diagnostic medical sonographers are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $96,590. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- The household modeled for diagnostic medical sonographers is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Washington retains the most, $94,193. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- The price deflation applied to diagnostic medical sonographers uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is Alabama at $59,863. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Alabama anchors the bottom at $59,863 — and the two source series are dated independently.