Helpers--Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters
What the pay figures show
- Washington comes first for this job on every measure. $56,140 on paper. Still first after tax. Still first at $43,559 once you adjust for what things cost. When the headline and the reality agree, say so plainly.
- For helpers--pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters, Washington's $56,140 median is the highest nominally, after tax, and after regional price adjustment, at $43,559. Concordance across all three measures is uncommon and worth stating explicitly, because the absence of a reordering is itself the finding for this occupation.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$42,360
People doing it
44,330
Highest paid
$56,140
WA
Best off, really
$43,559
WA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$33,590
Highest tenth
$57,780
Lowest, really
$29,951
DE
States with data
48
National average
$43,730
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 $29,951 and $43,559. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- This is a small job: about 44,330 people nationally. Fewer workers means each state figure is built on less data.
- Not every state reports this one. The figures here cover 48 jurisdictions, and the middle wage across them is $42,360. A state you do not see is one with no published number, not one paying nothing. Of those published, Washington pays most.
- Interstate variation for helpers--pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $29,951 to $43,559. 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.
- With 44,330 workers, helpers--pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters is among the smaller occupations BLS publishes. Treat single-state figures as indicative rather than precise; suppression and sampling error both bite harder at this scale.
- BLS publishes an occupational median for helpers--pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters in 48 jurisdictions, short of the full set. ⚠️ Absence reflects estimate suppression — small samples or disclosure rules — rather than absence of employment, so the state comparison above is over the published subset.
Pay band: Helpers--Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $33,590 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $42,360 |
| Top tenth earn over | $57,780 |
| This salary | $42,360 |
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 Helpers--Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters
The national median for this job
$42,360around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $33,590 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $42,360 |
| Top tenth | $57,780 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Helpers--Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters, state by state
The national median for this job
48states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Missouri · $34,630 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Washington · $56,140 |
| Spread | $21,510 |
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 | $41,950 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $43,170 |
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 | $56,140 | $47,288 | $43,559 |
| WY | $45,250 | $38,538 | $42,421 |
| OH | $45,760 | $38,406 | $41,831 |
| TN | $44,550 | $37,976 | $41,048 |
| NE | $44,550 | $36,652 | $40,556 |
| ME | $48,410 | $39,130 | $40,300 |
| AZ | $47,990 | $39,943 | $39,506 |
| AK | $47,290 | $40,178 | $39,500 |
| KY | $43,330 | $35,597 | $39,347 |
| NY | $52,000 | $41,751 | $38,793 |
| NC | $43,710 | $36,066 | $38,311 |
| HI | $52,000 | $41,452 | $38,166 |
| MT | $41,420 | $34,271 | $37,976 |
| IN | $42,240 | $34,903 | $37,863 |
| OK | $40,080 | $33,081 | $37,470 |
| NM | $40,100 | $33,643 | $37,222 |
| NH | $46,030 | $39,165 | $37,178 |
| MI | $42,810 | $35,009 | $37,171 |
| WI | $41,670 | $34,461 | $37,016 |
| UT | $43,380 | $35,105 | $36,952 |
| TX | $41,950 | $35,887 | $36,930 |
| CO | $45,030 | $37,089 | $36,583 |
| KS | $40,540 | $32,780 | $36,437 |
| AR | $37,670 | $31,513 | $36,427 |
| NV | $41,100 | $35,204 | $36,300 |
| ID | $40,120 | $33,143 | $36,252 |
| MD | $46,170 | $37,448 | $36,020 |
| SC | $39,450 | $33,392 | $35,837 |
| IA | $37,870 | $31,781 | $35,803 |
| SD | $36,500 | $31,508 | $35,766 |
| PA | $42,150 | $34,754 | $35,645 |
| LA | $37,380 | $31,480 | $35,633 |
| MS | $37,440 | $30,857 | $35,350 |
| CA | $47,130 | $39,028 | $34,667 |
| AL | $37,440 | $30,672 | $34,091 |
| NJ | $44,360 | $36,920 | $33,908 |
| WV | $35,930 | $30,135 | $33,568 |
| DC | $45,440 | $37,131 | $33,510 |
| OR | $44,800 | $34,807 | $33,238 |
| MA | $44,340 | $35,910 | $33,177 |
| VT | $37,440 | $31,265 | $32,354 |
| GA | $37,730 | $31,212 | $32,278 |
| MO | $34,630 | $29,315 | $31,947 |
| IL | $38,300 | $31,203 | $31,564 |
| FL | $37,560 | $32,359 | $31,280 |
| VA | $38,190 | $31,430 | $31,197 |
| CT | $38,930 | $32,228 | $31,082 |
| DE | $36,070 | $29,727 | $29,951 |
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle of the range, not a starting salary and not an offer. Half of this job earn less than the figures here and half earn more, and experience, employer and city move an individual a long way from the middle. Nationally the middle earns $42,360.
- 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 $47,288.
- 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 — Delaware anchors the bottom at $29,951. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- Figures are medians of the published wage distribution for helpers--pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters, not entry-level or offer wages. The national median is $42,360, with half of workers below it; dispersion within a state routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, driven by tenure, employer size, sector and metropolitan area. An individual's position in the distribution is not predictable from geography alone.
- The household modeled for helpers--pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters 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, $47,288. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for helpers--pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters 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.