Food Servers, Nonrestaurant
What the pay figures show
- A job board will not tell you this about food servers, nonrestaurant. The best headline number is New York, at $39,370. State taxes differ, so Washington leaves you more. Prices differ too, so North Dakota leaves you better off again — $35,945 once levelled out. Moving for the biggest salary can leave you worse off.
- Wage data for food servers, nonrestaurant places New York first at $39,370. That position is not robust: state income tax alone reorders it to Washington, and regional price parity reorders it again to North Dakota at $35,945. Because published comparisons almost universally stop at the nominal median, the state that appears best for this occupation is routinely not the state where a worker's income goes furthest.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$35,360
People doing it
293,900
Highest paid
$39,370
NY
Best off, really
$35,945
ND, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$28,030
Highest tenth
$46,120
Lowest, really
$26,398
UT
States with data
51
National average
$36,140
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.57%
ND, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Pay for this job is fairly steady around the country. Count tax and local prices and the states bunch closer still, from $26,398 to $35,945. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- 293,900 people do this job across the country, and the middle one earns $35,360. Common work, though not one of the giants.
- Every state reports this one. All 51 jurisdictions publish a figure, and the middle wage is $35,360, so the comparison above leaves nobody out.
- Geographic dispersion in food servers, nonrestaurant is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $26,398 through $35,945. Where nominal spread is this contained, relocation decisions in the occupation turn on non-wage factors, because the wage differential does not survive the adjustments in a form large enough to drive them.
- National employment in food servers, nonrestaurant is 293,900 — a substantial occupation, though an order of magnitude below the largest. Regional differentials here move real aggregate sums without dominating any single state's wage bill.
- All 51 jurisdictions publish an occupational median for food servers, nonrestaurant, so the spread described above is a complete national range rather than a range across a reported subset.
Pay band: Food Servers, Nonrestaurant
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $28,030 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $35,360 |
| Top tenth earn over | $46,120 |
| This salary | $35,360 |
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 Food Servers, Nonrestaurant
The national median for this job
$35,360around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $28,030 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $35,360 |
| Top tenth | $46,120 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Food Servers, Nonrestaurant, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Louisiana · $27,200 |
|---|---|
| Highest | New York · $39,370 |
| Spread | $12,170 |
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 | $29,300 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $30,152 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ND | $36,910 | $31,837 | $35,945 |
| NM | $35,740 | $30,328 | $33,553 |
| VT | $37,540 | $31,342 | $32,433 |
| AK | $38,090 | $32,785 | $32,233 |
| ME | $37,680 | $31,181 | $32,113 |
| NV | $36,030 | $31,130 | $32,100 |
| CO | $38,900 | $32,433 | $31,991 |
| WY | $33,090 | $28,768 | $31,666 |
| SD | $31,980 | $27,876 | $31,643 |
| ID | $34,220 | $28,715 | $31,409 |
| WI | $34,670 | $29,181 | $31,345 |
| WA | $38,870 | $33,412 | $30,777 |
| MN | $36,000 | $29,999 | $30,481 |
| MI | $34,260 | $28,503 | $30,263 |
| MT | $32,090 | $27,213 | $30,155 |
| NH | $36,710 | $31,676 | $30,069 |
| NY | $39,370 | $32,285 | $29,997 |
| KY | $32,200 | $27,043 | $29,893 |
| AZ | $35,390 | $30,134 | $29,804 |
| MO | $31,840 | $27,204 | $29,647 |
| NE | $31,540 | $26,769 | $29,620 |
| SC | $31,740 | $27,350 | $29,353 |
| CA | $39,010 | $32,828 | $29,160 |
| IN | $31,840 | $26,854 | $29,130 |
| IA | $30,110 | $25,841 | $29,111 |
| IL | $35,080 | $28,775 | $29,108 |
| MD | $36,650 | $30,251 | $29,097 |
| CT | $35,950 | $30,103 | $29,032 |
| TN | $30,670 | $26,823 | $28,994 |
| VA | $35,090 | $29,118 | $28,901 |
| RI | $34,860 | $29,303 | $28,895 |
| OH | $30,440 | $26,518 | $28,883 |
| HI | $37,920 | $31,142 | $28,674 |
| PA | $33,300 | $27,914 | $28,630 |
| WV | $30,170 | $25,689 | $28,616 |
| DC | $37,920 | $31,540 | $28,464 |
| FL | $33,930 | $29,443 | $28,460 |
| NC | $31,460 | $26,712 | $28,375 |
| NJ | $36,390 | $30,863 | $28,345 |
| MA | $36,750 | $30,191 | $27,893 |
| OR | $36,620 | $28,950 | $27,645 |
| OK | $28,490 | $24,290 | $27,513 |
| AR | $27,600 | $23,772 | $27,480 |
| GA | $31,530 | $26,540 | $27,446 |
| AL | $29,000 | $24,278 | $26,984 |
| KS | $29,040 | $24,182 | $26,879 |
| LA | $27,200 | $23,579 | $26,690 |
| TX | $29,300 | $25,723 | $26,470 |
| DE | $31,430 | $26,257 | $26,454 |
| MS | $27,250 | $23,052 | $26,408 |
| UT | $30,170 | $25,079 | $26,398 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for food servers, nonrestaurant as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $35,360, 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 food servers, nonrestaurant. 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 $33,412.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for food servers, nonrestaurant. 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 Utah, on $26,398.
- These are distribution medians for food servers, nonrestaurant, with a national value of $35,360. 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 food servers, nonrestaurant 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, $33,412. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for food servers, nonrestaurant 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; Utah anchors the distribution at $26,398. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.