Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks in Colorado
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$30,800
after federal, FICA and Colorado tax
Tax takes
$5,950
16.2% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$30,380
Colorado costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Colorado — 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
$36,750
Kept after tax
$30,800
Worth in national money
$30,380
State rank
16
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks is strong here. Colorado's middle earner gets $36,750, putting the state 16 of 51 — about 4.79% ahead of the national figure.
- Measured against other jobs in Colorado, this one sits low: 484 of 491 occupations with published pay, in the bottom quarter.
- Prices here sit close to the national average, so the adjustment changes little. From $36,750 the take-home is $30,800, which is worth about $30,380 in comparable money. Tax does most of the work here, not cost of living. The average is higher, $39,000, because the best-paid pull it up.
- For hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks, Colorado sits in the upper band nationally: a median of $36,750, ranking 16 of 51 and running about 4.79% above the national midpoint. Nominal advantage of this size is usually, though not always, large enough to survive the state's own tax and price levels.
- Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks occupies position 484 of 491 in Colorado's occupational wage distribution, in the bottom quartile. National ranking and local ranking answer different questions and frequently disagree; this is the one a resident experiences.
- Colorado's price level is near the national average, so price deflation is close to neutral for hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks on its $36,750 median: $30,800 retained after tax becomes $30,380 in national-average terms. Where the price adjustment is small, the tax stack is the dominant determinant of the real outcome. The mean of $39,000 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $31,720 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $36,750 |
| Top tenth earn over | $47,120 |
| This salary | $36,750 |
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 Colorado | $30,800 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $31,709 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,250 |
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 | $35,619 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,721 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $36,750 as a midpoint for Colorado, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $31,720 and the ninetieth is $47,120 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $30,800 take-home in Colorado comes from $36,750. 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 484 of 491.
- One number stands for prices across all of Colorado, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $30,380, the adjusted value of that $36,750 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 484 of 491 in the state.
- The Colorado median of $36,750 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $31,720 to $47,120. 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 $30,800, from $36,750, assumes a single Colorado 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 484 of 491 locally, and the state ranks 16 of 51 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Colorado, so $30,380 — the adjusted value of that $36,750 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 484 of 491 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 $39,000 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $31,720 and the top tenth $47,120, so most people doing this work in Colorado sit within a fairly tight band.
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 $30,380 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 Colorado's own levy, $30,800 remains.
Can I compare this job across every state?
This occupation is published everywhere — all 51 of them — so comparing states measures real differences rather than gaps in the data.
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 Colorado is $39,000. 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 ($31,720 to $47,120) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Colorado rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Colorado's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $30,380 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 $30,800 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Colorado 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.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.