Excavating and Loading Machine and Dragline Operators, Surface Mining in Alaska
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$61,367
after federal, FICA and Alaska tax
Tax takes
$13,313
17.8% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$60,333
Alaska costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Alaska — 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
$74,680
Kept after tax
$61,367
Worth in national money
$60,333
State rank
7
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for this job is strong here. Alaska's middle earner gets $74,680, putting the state 7 of 49 — about 30.04% ahead of the national figure.
- Middle of the local pack. Of 430 occupations Alaska reports figures for, this is number 193.
- Prices here sit close to the national average, so the adjustment changes little. From $74,680 the take-home is $61,367, which is worth about $60,333 in comparable money. Tax does most of the work here, not cost of living. The average is higher, $75,720, because the best-paid pull it up.
- For excavating and loading machine and dragline operators, surface mining, Alaska sits in the upper band nationally: a median of $74,680, ranking 7 of 49 and running about 30.04% above the national midpoint. Nominal advantage of this size is usually, though not always, large enough to survive the state's own tax and price levels.
- In Alaska's occupational distribution, excavating and loading machine and dragline operators, surface mining sits at 193 of 430 — neither quartile. This local position is what a resident compares against, and it is determined by the state's own labor market rather than by national patterns for this occupation.
- Alaska's price level is near the national average, so price deflation is close to neutral for excavating and loading machine and dragline operators, surface mining on its $74,680 median: $61,367 retained after tax becomes $60,333 in national-average terms. Where the price adjustment is small, the tax stack is the dominant determinant of the real outcome. The mean of $75,720 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Excavating and Loading Machine and Dragline Operators, Surface Mining
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $42,680 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $74,680 |
| Top tenth earn over | $106,110 |
| This salary | $74,680 |
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 Alaska | $61,367 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $61,367 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,819 |
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 | $74,680 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,894 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 102 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Alaska earn less than $74,680. The published range is $42,680 up to $106,110, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- In Alaska the take-home figure of $61,367, from $74,680, 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 193 of 430 occupations here.
- Two cautions on $60,333, the adjusted value of that $74,680 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Alaska. 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 193 of 430 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for excavating and loading machine and dragline operators, surface mining in Alaska the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $42,680 to $106,110. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- Take-home for Alaska is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $61,367 from $74,680. 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 193 of 430 locally.
- This $60,333 adjusted figure, worked from $74,680, 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 193 of 430 in the state. The occupation ranks 193 of 430 locally.
Questions people ask
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
The label is broader than the work. From $42,680 at the bottom tenth to $106,110 at the top, the same title covers roles that share little beyond a name.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
The number and the value are different things. Alaska costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $60,333 rather than its face figure.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $61,367 of this wage reaches your account, because Alaska takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
Why is this job missing from some states?
A blank is a suppression, not a zero. 49 states have a published figure for this work; the others had too few responses to release one.
What drives the percentile dispersion in this occupation?
Dispersion between the tenth percentile ($42,680) and the ninetieth ($106,110) 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.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Alaska's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $60,333 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Alaska levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $61,367 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 49 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.