Electronics Engineers, Except Computer
What the pay figures show
- California pays this job the most on paper: $160,520. Two things happen before that money is yours. State tax takes a share, which puts New Jersey in front. Then local prices decide what is left, and New Mexico wins at $110,102. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For electronics engineers, except computer, California's $160,520 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote New Jersey; regional price parity then promotes New Mexico, whose $110,102 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
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$130,220
People doing it
96,900
Highest paid
$160,520
CA
Best off, really
$110,102
NM, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$81,840
Highest tenth
$206,960
Lowest, really
$68,174
VT
States with data
50
National average
$137,280
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
90.39%
NM, 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 $68,174 up to $110,102.
- Only 96,900 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- Some states are missing here. There are figures for 50 jurisdictions, averaging $130,220 in the middle. A blank means nobody published a number, not that the job pays nothing there. California leads the published set.
- The nominal spread for electronics engineers, except computer approaches a factor of two across states. Deflating for tax and price level compresses it substantially but leaves a real range of $68,174 to $110,102, indicating that most of the dispersion is real purchasing power rather than compensation for local costs.
- National employment in electronics engineers, except computer is 96,900. ⚠️ 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.
- Coverage for electronics engineers, except computer runs to 50 jurisdictions, short of the full set. The omitted states are suppressed at source; treat the spread above as the range across reported states rather than across the country.
Pay band: Electronics Engineers, Except Computer
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $81,840 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $130,220 |
| Top tenth earn over | $206,960 |
| This salary | $130,220 |
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 Electronics Engineers, Except Computer
The national median for this job
$130,220around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $81,840 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $130,220 |
| Top tenth | $206,960 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Electronics Engineers, Except Computer, state by state
The national median for this job
50states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Iowa · $81,330 |
|---|---|
| Highest | California · $160,520 |
| Spread | $79,190 |
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 | $132,220 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $136,064 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NM | $136,990 | $99,517 | $110,102 |
| MD | $155,650 | $110,266 | $106,061 |
| TX | $132,220 | $101,638 | $104,593 |
| TN | $122,920 | $95,282 | $102,991 |
| NJ | $158,730 | $111,837 | $102,713 |
| WV | $120,170 | $88,755 | $98,867 |
| MI | $127,200 | $93,052 | $98,798 |
| AL | $120,720 | $88,772 | $98,668 |
| UT | $128,430 | $93,333 | $98,243 |
| RI | $136,360 | $99,343 | $97,960 |
| OH | $118,830 | $89,875 | $97,891 |
| CA | $160,520 | $110,145 | $97,836 |
| DC | $157,040 | $108,223 | $97,671 |
| MS | $112,400 | $83,499 | $95,655 |
| AR | $109,830 | $82,490 | $95,356 |
| MO | $117,630 | $86,991 | $94,801 |
| IL | $129,390 | $93,444 | $94,526 |
| ME | $127,490 | $90,932 | $93,651 |
| NV | $116,180 | $90,563 | $93,383 |
| GA | $123,010 | $89,804 | $92,870 |
| PA | $121,260 | $90,414 | $92,732 |
| WA | $130,270 | $100,306 | $92,395 |
| ND | $104,860 | $81,813 | $92,369 |
| OK | $109,120 | $81,186 | $91,958 |
| CO | $127,010 | $93,197 | $91,927 |
| IN | $112,200 | $84,482 | $91,645 |
| NC | $115,920 | $86,263 | $91,634 |
| MA | $138,230 | $99,155 | $91,608 |
| SC | $113,720 | $83,873 | $90,015 |
| AZ | $118,120 | $89,377 | $88,400 |
| FL | $116,860 | $91,041 | $88,003 |
| LA | $100,390 | $76,829 | $86,965 |
| VA | $119,990 | $87,104 | $86,457 |
| KY | $101,860 | $77,041 | $85,158 |
| KS | $103,740 | $76,311 | $84,823 |
| WY | $95,910 | $76,303 | $83,989 |
| ID | $102,770 | $76,535 | $83,714 |
| MN | $112,390 | $81,777 | $83,093 |
| HI | $126,690 | $89,673 | $82,565 |
| AK | $106,810 | $83,971 | $82,555 |
| OR | $124,400 | $85,959 | $82,083 |
| NY | $119,180 | $86,551 | $80,418 |
| NH | $105,190 | $82,831 | $78,628 |
| MT | $93,380 | $70,608 | $78,241 |
| SD | $84,150 | $68,030 | $77,223 |
| NE | $91,140 | $69,504 | $76,905 |
| WI | $93,710 | $70,647 | $75,885 |
| CT | $106,040 | $78,317 | $75,530 |
| IA | $81,330 | $63,567 | $71,611 |
| VT | $86,180 | $65,880 | $68,174 |
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 $130,220.
- 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, New Jersey keeps the most at $111,837.
- The price adjustment for this job uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Vermont anchors the bottom at $68,174. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- Figures are medians of the published wage distribution for electronics engineers, except computer, not entry-level or offer wages. The national median is $130,220, 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 electronics engineers, except computer 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 New Jersey retains the most, $111,837. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for electronics engineers, except computer deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.