Environmental Engineers
What the pay figures show
- Louisiana pays environmental engineers the most on paper: $130,510. Two things happen before that money is yours. State tax takes a share, which puts Washington in front. Then local prices decide what is left, and Louisiana wins at $109,730. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For environmental engineers, Louisiana's $130,510 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote Washington; regional price parity then promotes Louisiana, whose $109,730 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
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
$107,110
People doing it
38,340
Highest paid
$130,510
LA
Best off, really
$109,730
LA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$69,990
Highest tenth
$162,220
Lowest, really
$67,556
NH
States with data
50
National average
$112,910
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.34%
LA, 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 $67,556 and $109,730. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- Just 38,340 Americans work in this job. Small fields move around more from year to year.
- This job is not published everywhere — 50 jurisdictions have a figure, with $107,110 in the middle. Where one is missing, it was never released. Louisiana tops the ones that are.
- Interstate variation for environmental engineers is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $67,556 to $109,730. 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.
- 38,340 are employed nationally in environmental engineers — a small occupation, where the state spread above is more sensitive to sample composition than it would be in a large one.
- 50 jurisdictions carry a published median for environmental engineers. ⚠️ Suppression is not random: it correlates with small state-level samples, so the reported set skews toward larger employers of this occupation.
Pay band: Environmental Engineers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $69,990 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $107,110 |
| Top tenth earn over | $162,220 |
| This salary | $107,110 |
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 Environmental Engineers
The national median for this job
$107,110around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $69,990 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $107,110 |
| Top tenth | $162,220 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Environmental Engineers, state by state
The national median for this job
50states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | West Virginia · $83,200 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Louisiana · $130,510 |
| Spread | $47,310 |
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 | $123,060 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $126,638 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| LA | $130,510 | $96,941 | $109,730 |
| NE | $120,620 | $88,902 | $98,368 |
| TX | $123,060 | $95,378 | $98,150 |
| ID | $117,520 | $86,130 | $94,208 |
| OH | $113,180 | $86,056 | $93,731 |
| WY | $106,330 | $83,633 | $92,058 |
| NM | $108,360 | $81,083 | $89,707 |
| WA | $125,460 | $97,018 | $89,366 |
| KY | $107,520 | $80,825 | $89,341 |
| SD | $98,890 | $78,399 | $88,994 |
| NV | $109,720 | $86,018 | $88,697 |
| FL | $116,840 | $91,027 | $87,990 |
| AL | $102,650 | $76,764 | $85,322 |
| MN | $115,750 | $83,913 | $85,262 |
| AK | $110,220 | $86,370 | $84,914 |
| OR | $127,100 | $87,568 | $83,620 |
| TN | $97,190 | $77,203 | $83,449 |
| MI | $105,080 | $78,539 | $83,389 |
| MT | $100,140 | $74,981 | $83,087 |
| CA | $130,410 | $92,365 | $82,043 |
| ND | $91,370 | $72,586 | $81,952 |
| IA | $94,830 | $72,551 | $81,732 |
| UT | $103,380 | $76,957 | $81,006 |
| CT | $114,710 | $83,896 | $80,911 |
| MO | $98,170 | $74,216 | $80,879 |
| IL | $107,990 | $79,600 | $80,522 |
| PA | $103,330 | $78,350 | $80,359 |
| NC | $99,440 | $75,327 | $80,017 |
| MS | $91,100 | $69,367 | $79,465 |
| OK | $92,090 | $69,972 | $79,256 |
| CO | $106,890 | $80,032 | $78,941 |
| MA | $115,800 | $84,825 | $78,369 |
| KS | $94,070 | $70,048 | $77,861 |
| SC | $96,140 | $72,422 | $77,725 |
| IN | $92,460 | $71,178 | $77,212 |
| VA | $104,940 | $77,382 | $76,807 |
| AR | $85,280 | $66,128 | $76,441 |
| RI | $101,140 | $76,530 | $75,465 |
| GA | $96,530 | $72,521 | $74,996 |
| WI | $89,990 | $68,250 | $73,311 |
| VT | $92,580 | $69,960 | $72,396 |
| AZ | $93,970 | $72,991 | $72,193 |
| ME | $93,930 | $69,836 | $71,924 |
| HI | $107,880 | $77,968 | $71,788 |
| WV | $83,200 | $64,440 | $71,782 |
| DE | $95,720 | $71,083 | $71,617 |
| NJ | $102,630 | $76,683 | $70,427 |
| MD | $97,570 | $73,200 | $70,408 |
| NY | $101,270 | $75,139 | $69,815 |
| NH | $88,610 | $71,167 | $67,556 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for environmental engineers, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $107,110 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for environmental engineers. 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 $97,018.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for environmental engineers. 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 New Hampshire, on $67,556.
- All wage figures for environmental engineers are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $107,110. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- The household modeled for environmental engineers 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, $97,018. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for environmental engineers 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; New Hampshire anchors the distribution at $67,556. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.