Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, & Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, & Tenders, Metal & Plastic in Florida
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$34,569
after federal, FICA and Florida tax
Tax takes
$5,741
14.2% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$33,416
Florida costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Florida — 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
$40,310
Kept after tax
$34,569
Worth in national money
$33,416
State rank
42
of 48 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. Florida pays this job a middle wage of $40,310, 42 of 48 states and about 13.4% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Within Florida this is lower-paid work. Of 493 occupations the state publishes figures for, this job ranks 392. That is the bottom quarter locally, whatever the national comparison says.
- Florida is an expensive state, and the adjusted figure shows it. From $40,310 the take-home is $34,569; in national-average money that behaves like $33,416. The average comes to $43,250, above the middle, thanks to the top of the range.
- Florida's $40,310 median for grinding, lapping, polishing, & buffing machine tool setters, operators, & tenders, metal & plastic places it 42 of 48 states, about 13.4% 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.
- Against every occupation Florida reports, grinding, lapping, polishing, & buffing machine tool setters, operators, & tenders, metal & plastic ranks 392 of 493, in the lowest quartile of the state's distribution. That position is set by the local labor market and is independent of how the state compares nationally for this work.
- Take-home for grinding, lapping, polishing, & buffing machine tool setters, operators, & tenders, metal & plastic in Florida, on $40,310, is $34,569; deflated by the state's price level, $33,416. ⚠️ The deflator is statewide, so it understates the erosion in the state's metropolitan areas and overstates it outside them. At $43,250 the mean overshoots the median — the usual right-skewed shape.
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Pay band: Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, & Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, & Tenders, Metal & Plastic
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $34,790 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $40,310 |
| Top tenth earn over | $56,670 |
| This salary | $40,310 |
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 Florida | $34,569 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $34,569 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,158 |
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 | $40,310 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,610 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 103 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $40,310 as a midpoint for Florida, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $34,790 and the ninetieth is $56,670 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $34,569 take-home in Florida comes from $40,310. It is the no-frills case: single filer, standard deduction, nothing set aside before tax. Real circumstances almost always reduce the tax. City and school-district taxes are not counted at all. Locally the work ranks 392 of 493.
- The wage data and the price data come from different years. That is how each is published. The price adjustment behind $33,416 uses one figure for the whole of Florida. A city and a rural county there can differ by more than two states do. Out of 493 occupations the state publishes, this one sits at 392.
- The Florida median of $40,310 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $34,790 to $56,670. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- Retained pay of $34,569, from $40,310, assumes a single Florida filer with the standard deduction and no elective deferrals. Pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions, dependants and itemized deductions all reduce it further; local income taxes, excluded here, would increase it in the states that levy them. This occupation ranks 392 of 493 locally, and the state ranks 42 of 48 for it.
- Wage and price series carry different reference periods, each published on its own schedule. The real-terms figure of $33,416, worked from $40,310, deflates by a statewide parity that conceals substantial intra-state variation, concentrated in housing — so it supports comparison between states rather than the pricing of a move to a particular Florida address, on work sitting at 392 of 493 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
It is the midpoint, not the average. The average here is $43,250, 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 — $34,790 at the tenth percentile, $56,670 at the ninetieth.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
The number and the value are different things. Florida costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $33,416 rather than its face figure.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Most of it arrives. $34,569 lands after tax, since there is no state income tax on wages here — though the federal floor is identical in every state.
Why is this job missing from some states?
A blank is a suppression, not a zero. 48 states have a published figure for this work; the others had too few responses to release one.
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 Florida is $43,250. 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 ($34,790 to $56,670) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Florida rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Florida's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $33,416 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?
Florida levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $34,569 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 48 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.