First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers
What the pay figures show
- For once the obvious answer is right. Washington pays this job best, at $59,400. It keeps that lead after tax. It keeps it after local prices too — $45,972 in comparable money. Most jobs are not this tidy.
- The nominal leader for first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers is also the real leader: Washington at $59,400, holding through tax and through price deflation to $45,972. Both adjustments leave the ordering at the top intact, which indicates a wage premium large enough to dominate the state's tax burden and price level rather than merely offset them.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$44,080
People doing it
1,223,240
Highest paid
$59,400
WA
Best off, really
$45,972
WA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$29,940
Highest tenth
$65,570
Lowest, really
$31,109
WV
States with data
51
National average
$46,180
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
108.56%
WA, 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 $31,109 and $45,972. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- About 1,223,240 people in the country do this job. Very few jobs are this big. That is part of why its geography is worth setting out with care.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $44,080 in the middle.
- Interstate variation for first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $31,109 to $45,972. 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.
- 1,223,240 workers are employed nationally in first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers. At this scale the occupation's wage geography is a macroeconomic fact as much as a career one, and small per-worker differentials aggregate into substantial regional flows.
- 51 jurisdictions report first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $29,940 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $44,080 |
| Top tenth earn over | $65,570 |
| This salary | $44,080 |
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 First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers
The national median for this job
$44,080around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $29,940 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $44,080 |
| Top tenth | $65,570 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | West Virginia · $33,070 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Washington · $59,400 |
| Spread | $26,330 |
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 | $36,480 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $37,541 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WA | $59,400 | $49,908 | $45,972 |
| ND | $44,720 | $38,113 | $43,030 |
| VT | $49,820 | $40,798 | $42,218 |
| DC | $57,170 | $45,847 | $41,376 |
| CT | $52,940 | $42,556 | $41,042 |
| CO | $50,550 | $41,281 | $40,718 |
| MT | $44,010 | $36,230 | $40,147 |
| IN | $44,880 | $36,947 | $40,079 |
| NH | $49,710 | $42,122 | $39,985 |
| ME | $47,990 | $38,821 | $39,981 |
| SD | $40,640 | $34,834 | $39,542 |
| NC | $45,010 | $37,058 | $39,366 |
| RI | $48,400 | $39,674 | $39,122 |
| DE | $48,120 | $38,741 | $39,032 |
| AK | $46,570 | $39,599 | $38,931 |
| NV | $44,030 | $37,558 | $38,728 |
| MN | $45,270 | $36,951 | $37,545 |
| TN | $40,500 | $34,722 | $37,531 |
| NJ | $48,420 | $39,958 | $36,698 |
| FL | $44,470 | $37,912 | $36,647 |
| VA | $45,550 | $36,921 | $36,646 |
| IA | $38,760 | $32,463 | $36,571 |
| NM | $39,310 | $33,043 | $36,557 |
| PA | $43,050 | $35,449 | $36,358 |
| NE | $39,230 | $32,620 | $36,094 |
| HI | $48,880 | $39,169 | $36,065 |
| NY | $47,190 | $38,146 | $35,443 |
| WI | $39,670 | $32,953 | $35,396 |
| SC | $38,520 | $32,663 | $35,055 |
| WY | $36,820 | $31,765 | $34,965 |
| MA | $46,600 | $37,613 | $34,750 |
| OH | $37,340 | $31,872 | $34,715 |
| OR | $46,950 | $36,346 | $34,708 |
| ID | $38,190 | $31,695 | $34,668 |
| CA | $46,980 | $38,914 | $34,565 |
| MS | $36,530 | $30,163 | $34,554 |
| KS | $38,220 | $31,046 | $34,509 |
| LA | $35,800 | $30,258 | $34,249 |
| MO | $37,400 | $31,410 | $34,230 |
| AL | $37,110 | $30,421 | $33,812 |
| AZ | $40,550 | $34,151 | $33,777 |
| OK | $35,420 | $29,547 | $33,467 |
| MD | $42,450 | $34,636 | $33,315 |
| UT | $38,750 | $31,591 | $33,253 |
| MI | $37,940 | $31,303 | $33,236 |
| AR | $33,800 | $28,546 | $32,998 |
| KY | $35,810 | $29,818 | $32,959 |
| GA | $38,600 | $31,868 | $32,956 |
| IL | $39,470 | $32,085 | $32,457 |
| TX | $36,480 | $31,492 | $32,407 |
| WV | $33,070 | $27,927 | $31,109 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for this job as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $44,080, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for this job. 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 $49,908.
- The price adjustment for this job uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — West Virginia anchors the bottom at $31,109. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- These are distribution medians for first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers, with a national value of $44,080. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
- The household modeled for first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers 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, $49,908. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.