Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers in Virginia
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$27,118
after federal, FICA and Virginia tax
Tax takes
$5,292
16.3% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$26,917
Virginia costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Virginia — 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
$32,410
Kept after tax
$27,118
Worth in national money
$26,917
State rank
16
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for this job is strong here. Virginia's middle earner gets $32,410, putting the state 16 of 51 — about 4.62% ahead of the national figure.
- Against 489 occupations Virginia publishes, this job lands at 477. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $32,410, tax leaves $27,118, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $26,917 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $34,850, since top earners drag the number up.
- For dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers, Virginia sits in the upper band nationally: a median of $32,410, ranking 16 of 51 and running about 4.62% above the national midpoint. Nominal advantage of this size is usually, though not always, large enough to survive the state's own tax and price levels.
- Within Virginia, this work ranks 477 of 489 occupations by median pay, in the bottom quartile. The within-state position is the more salient one for anyone weighing this job against alternatives available to them locally.
- Because Virginia sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers — median $32,410 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $27,118 retained, $26,917 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $34,850 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $27,370 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $32,410 |
| Top tenth earn over | $46,360 |
| This salary | $32,410 |
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 Virginia | $27,118 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $28,221 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,125 |
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 | $31,037 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,570 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Virginia earn less than $32,410. The published range is $27,370 up to $46,360, 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 Virginia's $27,118, worked from $32,410. 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 477 of 489.
- Two cautions on $26,917, the adjusted value of that $32,410 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Virginia. 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 477 of 489 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers in Virginia the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $27,370 to $46,360. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- The Virginia take-home of $27,118, on $32,410 for work ranking 477 of 489 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 477 of 489 in the state.
- This $26,917 adjusted figure, worked from $32,410, 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 477 of 489 in the state. The occupation ranks 477 of 489 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 $34,850, 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?
The range here is narrow. From $27,370 at the bottom tenth to $46,360 at the top, pay for this work clusters rather than spreads.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
A larger wage in a dearer place is not automatically more. Adjusted for local prices, this pay behaves like $26,917 of national purchasing power.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Into four separate taxes, not one. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare apply everywhere, and Virginia adds its own income tax on top — which is why $27,118 of this wage survives to your account.
Can I compare this job across every state?
This occupation is published everywhere — all 51 of them — so comparing states measures real differences rather than gaps in the data.
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 Virginia is $34,850. 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 ($27,370 to $46,360) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Virginia rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Virginia's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $26,917 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $27,118 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Virginia income tax for a single filer with no adjustments. The state layer is levied in addition to the federal one; only its rate and base differ between states.
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.