Highway Maintenance Workers in Illinois
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$48,847
after federal, FICA and Illinois tax
Tax takes
$12,853
20.8% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$49,412
Illinois costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Illinois — 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
$61,700
Kept after tax
$48,847
Worth in national money
$49,412
State rank
5
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Illinois is one of the better-paying states for highway maintenance workers. The middle earner takes $61,700, which ranks 5 of 49 states with published figures. That is about 22.76% above the national middle.
- Against other work in Illinois, this sits in the middle: 252 of 494 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $61,700, tax leaves $48,847, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $49,412 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $66,410, since top earners drag the number up.
- Illinois ranks 5 of 49 states publishing a median for highway maintenance workers, at $61,700 — about 22.76% above the national median. A state's position on nominal pay is the figure wage tables report and the least informative of the three on this page, because it survives neither the tax adjustment nor the price adjustment intact for most occupations.
- Highway maintenance workers ranks 252 of 494 occupations in Illinois by median pay, in the middle bands. Within-state and national positions are separate measurements and a job commonly sits in different quartiles on each.
- Because Illinois sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for highway maintenance workers — median $61,700 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $48,847 retained, $49,412 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $66,410 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Highway Maintenance Workers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $35,680 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $61,700 |
| Top tenth earn over | $100,790 |
| This salary | $61,700 |
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 Illinois | $48,847 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $51,756 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$3,848 |
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 | $58,079 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$4,654 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 99 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Illinois earn less than $61,700. The published range is $35,680 up to $100,790, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- That $48,847 take-home in Illinois comes from $61,700. 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 252 of 494.
- One number stands for prices across all of Illinois, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $49,412, the adjusted value of that $61,700 median, as a way to compare states fairly, not as a quote for any particular place. The two datasets are also from different years. This job sits at 252 of 494 in the state.
- Reported values are medians; for highway maintenance workers in Illinois the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $35,680 to $100,790. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- Retained pay of $48,847, from $61,700, assumes a single Illinois 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 252 of 494 locally, and the state ranks 5 of 49 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Illinois, so $49,412 — the adjusted value of that $61,700 median — establishes comparability between states rather than accuracy within one. The wage and parity series are dated independently, each following its own publication cycle, and neither is projected forward. This occupation sits at 252 of 494 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
Half earn more than this and half earn less. The average sits at $66,410 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $35,680, the highest tenth $100,790, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
A smaller wage in a cheaper place is not automatically less. Adjusted for local prices, this is worth $49,412.
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 Illinois's own levy, $48,847 remains.
Why is this job missing from some states?
The survey withholds small samples rather than publish an unreliable number. Pay appears for 49 states here, and a missing state means too few reports, not no jobs.
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 Illinois is $66,410. 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 ($35,680) and the ninetieth ($100,790) 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.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Illinois's regional price parity is at or below the national average, so nominal wages understate purchasing power. Take-home deflated by the state price level is $49,412 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $48,847 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Illinois 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 49 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.