Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks in North Carolina
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$25,520
after federal, FICA and North Carolina tax
Tax takes
$4,380
14.6% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$27,109
North Carolina costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in North Carolina — 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
$29,900
Kept after tax
$25,520
Worth in national money
$27,109
State rank
41
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. North Carolina pays hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks a middle wage of $29,900, 41 of 51 states and about 14.74% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Within North Carolina this is lower-paid work. Of 489 occupations the state publishes figures for, hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ranks 479. That is the bottom quarter locally, whatever the national comparison says.
- Cheaper living works in this state's favor. From $29,900 you keep $25,520 after tax, and local prices stretch that to the equivalent of $27,109 at national prices. Averages run higher here, $31,050, since top earners drag the number up.
- North Carolina's $29,900 median for hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks places it 41 of 51 states, about 14.74% 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 North Carolina reports, hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ranks 479 of 489, 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.
- Retained pay in North Carolina is $25,520 after the full tax stack, from $29,900. Because the state's price level runs below the national average, the price-adjusted equivalent is $27,109 — a real-terms figure describing purchasing power rather than compensation, and not a number that appears on any pay stub. Mean pay of $31,050 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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 | $23,120 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $29,900 |
| Top tenth earn over | $37,330 |
| This salary | $29,900 |
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 North Carolina | $25,520 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $26,205 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$143 |
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 | $29,048 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$173 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 94 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle, not an offer. Half of hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks in North Carolina earn under $29,900 and half over. The published range runs $23,120 at the tenth percentile to $37,330 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind North Carolina's $25,520, worked from $29,900. 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 479 of 489.
- Two cautions on $27,109, the adjusted value of that $29,900 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of North Carolina. 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 479 of 489 locally.
- Figures are distribution medians for hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks in North Carolina, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $23,120 to $37,330; within-state dispersion of that width routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, so tenure, employer and metropolitan area predict an individual's pay better than geography does.
- The North Carolina take-home of $25,520, on $29,900 for work ranking 479 of 489 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 479 of 489 in the state.
- This $27,109 adjusted figure, worked from $29,900, 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 479 of 489 in the state. The occupation ranks 479 of 489 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 $31,050 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $23,120 at the tenth percentile, $37,330 at the ninetieth.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in North Carolina sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $27,109 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Into four separate taxes, not one. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare apply everywhere, and North Carolina adds its own income tax on top — which is why $25,520 of this wage survives to your account.
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 North Carolina is $31,050. 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 ($23,120 to $37,330) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to North Carolina rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
North Carolina'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 $27,109 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 $25,520 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and North Carolina 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.