Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance
What the pay figures show
- Two answers for this job. Best paid: the District of Columbia, at $72,260. Tax does not change that. Best off: North Dakota, at $54,696 once local prices count. Tax was not what separated them. Rent was.
- The District of Columbia's $72,260 median for dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance 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 $54,696. 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
$50,340
People doing it
202,810
Highest paid
$72,260
DC
Best off, really
$54,696
ND, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$36,030
Highest tenth
$78,140
Lowest, really
$37,427
CT
States with data
51
National average
$54,740
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.57%
ND, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- The state you work in changes what this job pays, but less than you would expect. Level out tax and prices and the whole country sits between $37,427 and $54,696. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- Roughly 202,810 people hold this job nationally, earning $50,340 in the middle. A solid, ordinary-sized job.
- Coverage is complete — all 51 jurisdictions publish this, on a middle wage of $50,340. Nothing is missing.
- Interstate variation for dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $37,427 to $54,696. A differential of this magnitude is real but rarely decisive on its own, which is worth stating plainly against wage tables that present nominal gaps without either adjustment.
- 202,810 are employed nationally in dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance, placing it well inside the reported range without approaching the highest-headcount occupations.
- Coverage for dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance is complete at 51 jurisdictions. No suppression applies, so the highest and lowest figures above are genuinely the national extremes.
Pay band: Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $36,030 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $50,340 |
| Top tenth earn over | $78,140 |
| This salary | $50,340 |
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 Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance
The national median for this job
$50,340around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $36,030 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $50,340 |
| Top tenth | $78,140 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | South Dakota · $43,920 |
|---|---|
| Highest | District of Columbia · $72,260 |
| Spread | $28,340 |
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 | $47,320 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $48,696 |
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 | $57,580 | $48,446 | $54,696 |
| DC | $72,260 | $56,415 | $50,914 |
| NE | $53,880 | $43,725 | $48,381 |
| MN | $59,220 | $47,260 | $48,020 |
| VT | $56,360 | $45,833 | $47,429 |
| AK | $56,730 | $47,763 | $46,957 |
| IL | $57,240 | $45,484 | $46,011 |
| WA | $59,330 | $49,852 | $45,920 |
| DE | $57,170 | $45,510 | $45,853 |
| MO | $51,410 | $42,009 | $45,780 |
| OH | $50,320 | $41,945 | $45,685 |
| WI | $52,350 | $42,516 | $45,669 |
| TN | $49,660 | $42,082 | $45,486 |
| WY | $48,690 | $41,302 | $45,463 |
| ME | $55,150 | $44,090 | $45,409 |
| KY | $49,990 | $40,715 | $45,005 |
| AR | $47,130 | $38,764 | $44,809 |
| IN | $50,060 | $40,956 | $44,428 |
| LA | $47,050 | $38,959 | $44,099 |
| ID | $49,660 | $40,303 | $44,083 |
| IA | $47,000 | $38,770 | $43,676 |
| AL | $48,790 | $39,292 | $43,672 |
| CO | $54,070 | $43,955 | $43,355 |
| UT | $51,010 | $40,897 | $43,048 |
| MT | $47,140 | $38,598 | $42,771 |
| WV | $46,620 | $38,338 | $42,706 |
| MI | $49,490 | $40,093 | $42,568 |
| MS | $45,660 | $37,133 | $42,539 |
| SD | $43,920 | $37,470 | $42,533 |
| SC | $47,550 | $39,550 | $42,446 |
| NH | $52,770 | $44,581 | $42,319 |
| NC | $48,230 | $39,517 | $41,977 |
| NV | $47,920 | $40,684 | $41,951 |
| KS | $47,170 | $37,738 | $41,947 |
| PA | $49,960 | $40,789 | $41,835 |
| OK | $44,950 | $36,775 | $41,654 |
| NY | $55,810 | $44,607 | $41,446 |
| TX | $47,320 | $40,202 | $41,370 |
| GA | $49,180 | $39,841 | $41,201 |
| MA | $55,690 | $44,462 | $41,078 |
| NJ | $54,590 | $44,575 | $40,938 |
| NM | $43,960 | $36,579 | $40,470 |
| VA | $50,710 | $40,770 | $40,467 |
| OR | $54,980 | $42,096 | $40,198 |
| RI | $49,320 | $40,379 | $39,817 |
| MD | $51,350 | $41,364 | $39,787 |
| AZ | $47,880 | $39,857 | $39,421 |
| HI | $52,570 | $41,868 | $38,549 |
| CA | $52,350 | $42,910 | $38,115 |
| FL | $45,880 | $39,045 | $37,742 |
| CT | $47,960 | $38,808 | $37,427 |
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle of the range, not a starting salary and not an offer. Half of this job earn less than the figures here and half earn more, and experience, employer and city move an individual a long way from the middle. Nationally the middle earns $50,340.
- The take-home numbers here use the simplest possible household: one filer for this job, 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 $56,415.
- 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 — Connecticut sits at the bottom on $37,427.
- Figures are medians of the published wage distribution for dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance, not entry-level or offer wages. The national median is $50,340, with half of workers below it; dispersion within a state routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, driven by tenure, employer size, sector and metropolitan area. An individual's position in the distribution is not predictable from geography alone.
- Retained-pay figures for dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance 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 $56,415, which leads in the District of Columbia.
- The price deflation applied to dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance 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 Connecticut at $37,427. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Connecticut anchors the bottom at $37,427 — and the two source series are dated independently.