Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, & Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, & Tenders, Metal & Plastic in Rhode Island
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$36,036
after federal, FICA and Rhode Island tax
Tax takes
$7,614
17.4% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$35,534
Rhode Island costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Rhode Island — 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
$43,650
Kept after tax
$36,036
Worth in national money
$35,534
State rank
35
of 48 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for this job is on the low side in Rhode Island. The middle earner gets $43,650. That is 35 of 48 states, and about 6.23% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against 452 occupations Rhode Island publishes, this job lands at 380. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $43,650, tax leaves $36,036, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $35,534 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $49,300, since top earners drag the number up.
- For grinding, lapping, polishing, & buffing machine tool setters, operators, & tenders, metal & plastic, Rhode Island sits in the lower band at $43,650, ranking 35 of 48 and trailing the national median by about 6.23%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Within Rhode Island, this work ranks 380 of 452 occupations by median pay, in the bottom quartile. The within-state position is the more salient one for anyone weighing this job against alternatives available to them locally.
- Because Rhode Island sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for grinding, lapping, polishing, & buffing machine tool setters, operators, & tenders, metal & plastic — median $43,650 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $36,036 retained, $35,534 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $49,300 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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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 | $37,150 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $43,650 |
| Top tenth earn over | $70,430 |
| This salary | $43,650 |
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 Rhode Island | $36,036 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $37,253 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,802 |
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 | $42,136 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,388 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $43,650 as a midpoint for Rhode Island, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $37,150 and the ninetieth is $70,430 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Rhode Island's $36,036, worked from $43,650. 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 380 of 452.
- Two cautions on $35,534, the adjusted value of that $43,650 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Rhode Island. No actual address matches that. The wage figures and price figures are also from different years. Each is published on its own timetable. This work sits at 380 of 452 locally.
- The Rhode Island median of $43,650 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $37,150 to $70,430. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- The Rhode Island take-home of $36,036, on $43,650 for work ranking 380 of 452 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 380 of 452 in the state.
- This $35,534 adjusted figure, worked from $43,650, rests on a state-level price parity averaging over within-state dispersion larger than much of the between-state dispersion. Wage and price vintages differ by publication schedule. The result is directionally sound and not address-specific, for work at 380 of 452 in the state. The occupation ranks 380 of 452 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $49,300, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
The label is broader than the work. From $37,150 at the bottom tenth to $70,430 at the top, the same title covers roles that share little beyond a name.
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 $35,534 of national purchasing power.
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 Rhode Island's own levy, $36,036 remains.
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 Rhode Island is $49,300. 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 drives the percentile dispersion in this occupation?
Dispersion between the tenth percentile ($37,150) and the ninetieth ($70,430) 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?
Rhode Island's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $35,534 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $36,036 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Rhode Island 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 48 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.