Electricians
What the pay figures show
- Where are electricians paid best? Oregon, at $101,310. That answer does not survive a pay stub. Take income tax out and Washington is ahead. Then count what things cost locally, and Illinois wins — the money there behaves like $74,945. Three questions. Three different states.
- The nominal leader for electricians is Oregon at $101,310, but the ordering does not hold through either adjustment. Applying federal, FICA and state income tax moves the top position to Washington; deflating by regional price parity moves it again, to Illinois at $74,945 in national-average terms. ⚠️ Federal tax is not what does this — it is uniform across states and cannot change a ranking. State income tax reorders first, price level second, and the two act independently.
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
$63,190
People doing it
757,220
Highest paid
$101,310
OR
Best off, really
$74,945
IL, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$42,640
Highest tenth
$108,510
Lowest, really
$46,528
AR
States with data
51
National average
$71,490
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
98.86%
IL, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Geography does a lot of the work in this job. Pay roughly doubles between the lowest state and the highest. Tax and prices narrow that gap. They come nowhere near closing it — the real range is still $46,528 up to $74,945.
- Roughly 757,220 people hold this job nationally, earning $63,190 in the middle. A solid, ordinary-sized job.
- Coverage is complete — all 51 jurisdictions publish this, on a middle wage of $63,190. Nothing is missing.
- The nominal spread for electricians approaches a factor of two across states. Deflating for tax and price level compresses it substantially but leaves a real range of $46,528 to $74,945, indicating that most of the dispersion is real purchasing power rather than compensation for local costs.
- 757,220 are employed nationally in electricians, placing it well inside the reported range without approaching the highest-headcount occupations.
- Coverage for electricians is complete at 51 jurisdictions. No suppression applies, so the highest and lowest figures above are genuinely the national extremes.
Pay band: Electricians
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $42,640 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $63,190 |
| Top tenth earn over | $108,510 |
| This salary | $63,190 |
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 Electricians
The national median for this job
$63,190around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $42,640 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $63,190 |
| Top tenth | $108,510 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Electricians, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Arkansas · $49,070 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Oregon · $101,310 |
| Spread | $52,240 |
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 | $58,570 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $60,273 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| IL | $99,560 | $74,087 | $74,945 |
| AK | $89,440 | $71,751 | $70,541 |
| WA | $95,220 | $75,817 | $69,838 |
| WY | $76,120 | $62,380 | $68,665 |
| OR | $101,310 | $71,787 | $68,551 |
| MT | $76,760 | $59,855 | $66,325 |
| HI | $96,460 | $70,802 | $65,190 |
| WI | $76,540 | $59,587 | $64,005 |
| MI | $76,270 | $59,495 | $63,169 |
| NV | $73,570 | $60,586 | $62,473 |
| ND | $65,710 | $54,956 | $62,047 |
| MN | $78,160 | $60,024 | $60,990 |
| ME | $75,380 | $58,092 | $59,829 |
| IN | $68,490 | $55,022 | $59,687 |
| SD | $61,390 | $51,507 | $58,467 |
| WV | $64,810 | $52,176 | $58,120 |
| OH | $64,700 | $53,104 | $57,839 |
| RI | $74,090 | $58,594 | $57,778 |
| CT | $77,540 | $59,865 | $57,735 |
| KS | $65,860 | $51,712 | $57,480 |
| MO | $65,410 | $52,600 | $57,322 |
| LA | $61,540 | $50,167 | $56,786 |
| MA | $79,420 | $61,051 | $56,404 |
| NY | $78,750 | $60,575 | $56,283 |
| MS | $60,860 | $48,739 | $55,834 |
| PA | $67,600 | $54,311 | $55,704 |
| IA | $60,860 | $49,380 | $55,629 |
| NJ | $77,250 | $60,444 | $55,513 |
| OK | $61,010 | $48,957 | $55,452 |
| TN | $61,090 | $51,266 | $55,414 |
| MD | $73,490 | $57,403 | $55,214 |
| ID | $63,000 | $50,315 | $55,034 |
| DC | $78,970 | $60,641 | $54,729 |
| NE | $60,820 | $48,985 | $54,201 |
| KY | $59,720 | $48,192 | $53,270 |
| VT | $63,430 | $51,070 | $52,848 |
| CA | $76,160 | $59,388 | $52,752 |
| NM | $58,390 | $47,518 | $52,572 |
| UT | $62,000 | $49,238 | $51,828 |
| SC | $58,740 | $47,799 | $51,299 |
| DE | $63,700 | $50,390 | $50,769 |
| TX | $58,570 | $49,241 | $50,672 |
| NH | $62,840 | $52,672 | $49,999 |
| AZ | $61,060 | $50,118 | $49,570 |
| AL | $55,690 | $44,533 | $49,497 |
| VA | $62,900 | $49,864 | $49,493 |
| CO | $62,230 | $50,152 | $49,468 |
| NC | $56,800 | $46,061 | $48,929 |
| GA | $58,320 | $46,729 | $48,324 |
| FL | $57,250 | $48,180 | $46,573 |
| AR | $49,070 | $40,251 | $46,528 |
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle of the range, not a starting salary and not an offer. Half of electricians 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 $63,190.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for electricians. 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 $75,817.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for electricians. Inside any state, a big city costs far more than a small town, so this is a fair way to compare states with each other and a poor way to price a specific move. The wage figures and the price figures are also from different years. At the bottom of the range sits Arkansas, on $46,528.
- Figures are medians of the published wage distribution for electricians, not entry-level or offer wages. The national median is $63,190, 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.
- The household modeled for electricians 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, $75,817. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for electricians rest on statewide regional price parities, which average over intra-state variation that is itself larger than much of the interstate variation. They support comparison between states and not the pricing of an individual relocation; Arkansas anchors the distribution at $46,528. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.