Industrial Machinery Mechanics
What the pay figures show
- The District of Columbia pays this job the most, $87,670. It still pays the most after tax. What it does not do is stay ahead once you count what living there costs. Level that out and Wyoming wins, at $70,368. Same work. A wage that goes further.
- For industrial machinery mechanics, the District of Columbia leads both nominally at $87,670 and after tax — state income tax differentials are not large enough here to disturb the ordering. Regional price parity is: deflating take-home by each state's price level puts Wyoming first at $70,368. The adjustment that matters for this occupation is therefore cost of living rather than tax, which is the opposite of the assumption most relocation comparisons start from.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$64,520
People doing it
439,640
Highest paid
$87,670
DC
Best off, really
$70,368
WY, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$46,120
Highest tenth
$95,170
Lowest, really
$49,213
FL
States with data
51
National average
$68,460
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
90.85%
WY, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Nationally, this job pays within a fairly narrow band. Adjust for tax and for local prices and the band tightens again, to between $49,213 and $70,368. Geography is not the main lever on pay here.
- Roughly 439,640 people hold this job nationally, earning $64,520 in the middle. A solid, ordinary-sized job.
- Every state reports this one. All 51 jurisdictions publish a figure, and the middle wage is $64,520, so the comparison above leaves nobody out.
- Wages for industrial machinery mechanics cluster comparatively tightly across states, and the clustering strengthens after tax and price deflation — a real range of $49,213 to $70,368. Occupation-level factors such as specialisation and employer type therefore explain more of an individual's pay here than location does.
- 439,640 are employed nationally in industrial machinery mechanics, placing it well inside the reported range without approaching the highest-headcount occupations.
- All 51 jurisdictions publish an occupational median for industrial machinery mechanics, so the spread described above is a complete national range rather than a range across a reported subset.
Pay band: Industrial Machinery Mechanics
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $46,120 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $64,520 |
| Top tenth earn over | $95,170 |
| This salary | $64,520 |
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 Industrial Machinery Mechanics
The national median for this job
$64,520around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $46,120 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $64,520 |
| Top tenth | $95,170 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Industrial Machinery Mechanics, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Mississippi · $57,760 |
|---|---|
| Highest | District of Columbia · $87,670 |
| Spread | $29,910 |
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 | $61,930 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $63,730 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WY | $78,320 | $63,928 | $70,368 |
| NV | $77,750 | $63,527 | $65,505 |
| ND | $65,990 | $55,175 | $62,294 |
| AK | $77,390 | $63,274 | $62,207 |
| DC | $87,670 | $66,022 | $59,585 |
| MT | $67,250 | $53,702 | $59,507 |
| IL | $76,200 | $58,810 | $59,491 |
| AZ | $74,790 | $59,978 | $59,322 |
| MO | $67,390 | $54,009 | $58,858 |
| TN | $65,010 | $54,416 | $58,818 |
| IA | $64,400 | $52,090 | $58,682 |
| SD | $61,560 | $51,643 | $58,622 |
| CO | $75,600 | $59,397 | $58,587 |
| UT | $70,720 | $55,434 | $58,351 |
| OH | $65,130 | $53,437 | $58,203 |
| WA | $77,220 | $63,154 | $58,173 |
| ME | $72,310 | $56,139 | $57,818 |
| KS | $65,830 | $51,690 | $57,455 |
| KY | $64,560 | $51,912 | $57,382 |
| WI | $66,620 | $53,197 | $57,141 |
| MN | $71,960 | $56,084 | $56,986 |
| NE | $64,110 | $51,479 | $56,961 |
| IN | $63,950 | $51,707 | $56,091 |
| AR | $59,760 | $48,445 | $56,000 |
| OK | $61,540 | $49,359 | $55,908 |
| LA | $60,260 | $49,177 | $55,665 |
| WV | $61,710 | $49,826 | $55,503 |
| ID | $62,860 | $50,210 | $54,919 |
| AL | $61,920 | $49,264 | $54,756 |
| MI | $64,250 | $51,325 | $54,494 |
| NM | $60,670 | $49,243 | $54,480 |
| MD | $71,870 | $56,340 | $54,192 |
| SC | $62,330 | $50,445 | $54,139 |
| HI | $77,330 | $58,798 | $54,137 |
| NJ | $74,760 | $58,841 | $54,041 |
| NC | $62,430 | $50,360 | $53,496 |
| OR | $75,670 | $55,993 | $53,469 |
| TX | $61,930 | $51,941 | $53,451 |
| DE | $67,320 | $52,978 | $53,376 |
| MS | $57,760 | $46,372 | $53,123 |
| CT | $69,950 | $54,943 | $52,988 |
| PA | $63,840 | $51,516 | $52,836 |
| VT | $63,180 | $50,886 | $52,658 |
| MA | $72,840 | $56,751 | $52,432 |
| CA | $74,400 | $58,291 | $51,777 |
| RI | $64,770 | $52,214 | $51,487 |
| NH | $64,150 | $53,725 | $50,999 |
| NY | $69,740 | $54,723 | $50,846 |
| GA | $61,130 | $48,846 | $50,514 |
| VA | $64,020 | $50,700 | $50,323 |
| FL | $60,650 | $50,912 | $49,213 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for this job, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $64,520 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- 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, the District of Columbia keeps the most at $66,022.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for this job. Inside any state, a big city costs far more than a small town, so this is a fair way to compare states with each other and a poor way to price a specific move. The wage figures and the price figures are also from different years. At the bottom of the range sits Florida, on $49,213.
- All wage figures for industrial machinery mechanics are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $64,520. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- The household modeled for industrial machinery mechanics 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 the District of Columbia retains the most, $66,022. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for industrial machinery mechanics rest on statewide regional price parities, which average over intra-state variation that is itself larger than much of the interstate variation. They support comparison between states and not the pricing of an individual relocation; Florida anchors the distribution at $49,213. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.