Extruding and Drawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic in Delaware

Machined metal parts and a CNC machine in a clean manufacturing workshop.

May 2025 wages · tax year 2026

You keep

$37,260

after federal, FICA and Delaware tax

Tax takes

$8,880

19.2% of the whole

Worth, in national money

$37,540

Delaware costs less than average

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

$46,140

Kept after tax

$37,260

Worth in national money

$37,540

State rank

32

of 46 states

What this pays, and what it is worth

  • The nominal figure here is modest. Delaware pays this job a middle wage of $46,140, 32 of 46 states and about 3.31% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
  • Against other work in Delaware, this sits in the middle: 326 of 445 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
  • No great distortion either way. Delaware costs about what the country costs, so from $46,140, take-home of $37,260 is worth roughly $37,540 in national money. The average comes to $49,830, above the middle, thanks to the top of the range.
  • Delaware's $46,140 median for extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic places it 32 of 46 states, about 3.31% 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.
  • Extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic ranks 326 of 445 occupations in Delaware by median pay, in the middle bands. Within-state and national positions are separate measurements and a job commonly sits in different quartiles on each.
  • Price parity in Delaware is near the national base, so for extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic, whose median is $46,140, the adjusted figure of $37,540 differs little from $37,260 retained after tax. The state's position for this occupation is therefore set by wage and tax rather than by living costs. At $49,830 the mean overshoots the median — the usual right-skewed shape.

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Pay band: Extruding and Drawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic

The state median for this job

50thpercentile, roughly
Lowest tenth earn under$36,930
Half earn under$46,140
Top tenth earn over$59,480
This salary$46,140

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

Compare with
+$1,994take-home per year in Texas
Take-home in Delaware$37,260
Take-home in Texas$39,253
Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity+$2,855

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

Moving to
$0now · $46,140$42,688
$42,688in Texas, for the same life
To match take-home only$43,658
You could take a cut of−$3,452
Prices in Texas97 vs 99

State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.

Sources and assumptions
  • Treat $46,140 as a midpoint for Delaware, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $36,930 and the ninetieth is $59,480 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
  • In Delaware the take-home figure of $37,260, from $46,140, 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 326 of 445 occupations here.
  • One number stands for prices across all of Delaware, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $37,540, the adjusted value of that $46,140 median, as a way to compare states fairly, not as a quote for any particular place. The two datasets are also from different years. This job sits at 326 of 445 in the state.
  • The Delaware median of $46,140 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $36,930 to $59,480. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
  • Take-home for Delaware is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $37,260 from $46,140. 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 326 of 445 locally.
  • Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Delaware, so $37,540 — the adjusted value of that $46,140 median — establishes comparability between states rather than accuracy within one. The wage and parity series are dated independently, each following its own publication cycle, and neither is projected forward. This occupation sits at 326 of 445 locally.

Questions people ask

Is this the average pay for the job?

It is the midpoint, not the average. The average here is $49,830, dragged up by high earners; the middle figure describes a typical worker better.

How much does pay for this job actually vary?

Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $36,930 at the tenth percentile, $59,480 at the ninetieth.

What does this pay actually buy where I live?

Further than the number implies. Delaware is cheaper than the national average, so this take-home behaves like $37,540 in national terms.

Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?

Three of them are federal and one is not. After income tax, Social Security, Medicare and Delaware's own levy, $37,260 remains.

Why is this job missing from some states?

Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 46 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.

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 Delaware is $49,830. 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 is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?

The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($36,930 to $59,480) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Delaware rather than a national figure.

What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?

Delaware'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 $37,540 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.

What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?

Take-home of $37,260 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Delaware income tax for a single filer with no adjustments. The state layer is levied in addition to the federal one; only its rate and base differ between states.

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 46 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.