Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers in Texas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$19,356
after federal, FICA and Texas tax
Tax takes
$2,194
10.2% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$19,919
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
$21,550
Kept after tax
$19,356
Worth in national money
$19,919
State rank
51
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. Texas pays this job a middle wage of $21,550, 51 of 51 states and about 36.58% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Within Texas this is lower-paid work. Of 493 occupations the state publishes figures for, this job ranks 493. That is the bottom quarter locally, whatever the national comparison says.
- Prices here sit close to the national average, so the adjustment changes little. From $21,550 the take-home is $19,356, which is worth about $19,919 in comparable money. Tax does most of the work here, not cost of living. The average is higher, $24,390, because the best-paid pull it up.
- Texas's $21,550 median for dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers places it 51 of 51 states, about 36.58% 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.
- Against every occupation Texas reports, dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers ranks 493 of 493, in the lowest quartile of the state's distribution. That position is set by the local labor market and is independent of how the state compares nationally for this work.
- Texas's price level is near the national average, so price deflation is close to neutral for dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers on its $21,550 median: $19,356 retained after tax becomes $19,919 in national-average terms. Where the price adjustment is small, the tax stack is the dominant determinant of the real outcome. The mean of $24,390 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.
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 band: Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $15,710 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $21,550 |
| Top tenth earn over | $35,540 |
| This salary | $21,550 |
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 | $19,356 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Florida | $19,356 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$1,209 |
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 | $21,550 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$1,518 |
| Prices in Florida | 103 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Texas earn less than $21,550. The published range is $15,710 up to $35,540, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Texas's $19,356, worked from $21,550. 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 493 of 493.
- Two cautions on $19,919, the adjusted value of that $21,550 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Texas. 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 493 of 493 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers in Texas the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $15,710 to $35,540. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- The Texas take-home of $19,356, on $21,550 for work ranking 493 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 493 of 493 in the state.
- This $19,919 adjusted figure, worked from $21,550, 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 493 of 493 in the state. The occupation ranks 493 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 $24,390 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 $15,710, the highest tenth $35,540, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
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 $19,919.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Most of it arrives. $19,356 lands after tax, since there is no state income tax on wages here — though the federal floor is identical in every state.
Can I compare this job across every state?
Yes for this one. Pay is published in all 51 jurisdictions, so a state-to-state comparison here rests on the same survey everywhere rather than on a patchwork.
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 $24,390. 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 ($15,710) and the ninetieth ($35,540) 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 $19,919 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 $19,356 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.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.