Emergency Management Directors in South Dakota
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$56,091
after federal, FICA and South Dakota tax
Tax takes
$11,089
16.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$63,671
South Dakota costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in South Dakota — 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
$67,180
Kept after tax
$56,091
Worth in national money
$63,671
State rank
41
of 47 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. South Dakota pays this job a middle wage of $67,180, 41 of 47 states and about 28.02% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Ordinary, locally speaking. This job ranks 133 among 457 occupations South Dakota publishes pay for.
- Cheaper living works in this state's favor. From $67,180 you keep $56,091 after tax, and local prices stretch that to the equivalent of $63,671 at national prices. Averages run higher here, $70,270, since top earners drag the number up.
- South Dakota's $67,180 median for emergency management directors places it 41 of 47 states, about 28.02% 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.
- Position 133 of 457 in South Dakota places emergency management directors in the middle of the state's wage distribution. Because within-state and cross-state rankings measure different things, this figure and the national one above should be read together rather than as a single verdict.
- Retained pay in South Dakota is $56,091 after the full tax stack, from $67,180. Because the state's price level runs below the national average, the price-adjusted equivalent is $63,671 — a real-terms figure describing purchasing power rather than compensation, and not a number that appears on any pay stub. Mean pay of $70,270 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Emergency Management Directors
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $48,640 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $67,180 |
| Top tenth earn over | $97,850 |
| This salary | $67,180 |
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 South Dakota | $56,091 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $56,091 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$5,949 |
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 | $67,180 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$8,218 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 88 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in South Dakota earn less than $67,180. The published range is $48,640 up to $97,850, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- In South Dakota the take-home figure of $56,091, from $67,180, assumes one filer, no dependants, and nothing paid into a pension before tax. Each of those lowers the bill, so treat it as the plain case. City and school-district income taxes are not included either, and in a few states those are real money. It ranks 133 of 457 occupations here.
- Two cautions on $63,671, the adjusted value of that $67,180 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of South Dakota. 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 133 of 457 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for emergency management directors in South Dakota the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $48,640 to $97,850. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- Take-home for South Dakota is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $56,091 from $67,180. Each omitted item reduces taxable income, so the figure is a lower bound on retained pay for this household shape. Municipal and school-district income taxes are excluded, which understates the burden materially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The occupation ranks 133 of 457 locally.
- This $63,671 adjusted figure, worked from $67,180, 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 133 of 457 in the state. The occupation ranks 133 of 457 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
It is the midpoint, not the average. The average here is $70,270, dragged up by high earners; the middle figure describes a typical worker better.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
Because one job title covers very different work. The bottom tenth here earn $48,640 and the top tenth $97,850 — experience, employer and specialism separate them, and a single figure hides all three.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in South Dakota sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $63,671 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
No. $56,091 survives, because South Dakota levies no wage income tax. The federal share does not change with the state you work in.
Why is this job missing from some states?
A blank is a suppression, not a zero. 47 states have a published figure for this work; the others had too few responses to release one.
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 South Dakota is $70,270. 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 ($48,640) and the ninetieth ($97,850) 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?
South Dakota'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 $63,671 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?
South Dakota levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $56,091 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.
Why does this occupation lack published estimates in every state?
BLS suppresses estimates failing disclosure or reliability criteria. This occupation has published state-level estimates in 47 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.