Firefighters in Alaska
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$49,450
after federal, FICA and Alaska tax
Tax takes
$9,380
15.9% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$48,616
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
$58,830
Kept after tax
$49,450
Worth in national money
$48,616
State rank
21
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Alaska pays firefighters around $58,830 at the midpoint, 21 of 50 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against other work in Alaska, this sits in the middle: 264 of 430 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $58,830, tax leaves $49,450, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $48,616 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $59,190, since top earners drag the number up.
- For firefighters the Alaska median is $58,830, ranking 21 of 50 states reporting. Mid-band nominal positions are the ones most frequently reordered by the adjustments, because no large wage premium exists to absorb a state's tax or price level.
- Firefighters ranks 264 of 430 occupations in Alaska 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.
- Because Alaska sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for firefighters — median $58,830 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $49,450 retained, $48,616 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $59,190 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Firefighters
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $35,520 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $58,830 |
| Top tenth earn over | $82,360 |
| This salary | $58,830 |
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 | $49,450 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $49,450 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,271 |
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 | $58,830 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,747 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 102 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle, not an offer. Half of firefighters in Alaska earn under $58,830 and half over. The published range runs $35,520 at the tenth percentile to $82,360 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Alaska's $49,450, worked from $58,830. That is on purpose. It lets states be compared with each other, not with each other's family circumstances. Local city taxes are left out. Locally this work ranks 264 of 430.
- One number stands for prices across all of Alaska, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $48,616, the adjusted value of that $58,830 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 264 of 430 in the state.
- Figures are distribution medians for firefighters in Alaska, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $35,520 to $82,360; within-state dispersion of that width routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, so tenure, employer and metropolitan area predict an individual's pay better than geography does.
- The Alaska take-home of $49,450, on $58,830 for work ranking 264 of 430 locally, models the simplest household deliberately: holding it constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful. It also means the absolute figure overstates liability for most real filers, and municipal income taxes are outside the model entirely. The occupation ranks 264 of 430 in the state.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Alaska, so $48,616 — the adjusted value of that $58,830 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 264 of 430 locally.
Questions people ask
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $35,520, the highest tenth $82,360, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
A larger wage in a dearer place is not automatically more. Adjusted for local prices, this pay behaves like $48,616 of national purchasing power.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $49,450 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?
Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 50 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.
What drives the percentile dispersion in this occupation?
Dispersion between the tenth percentile ($35,520) and the ninetieth ($82,360) 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 $48,616 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 $49,450 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 50 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.