Interior Designers in Indiana

A camera, paintbrushes and fabric swatches on a creative studio table.

May 2025 wages · tax year 2026

You keep

$50,646

after federal, FICA and Indiana tax

Tax takes

$11,934

19.1% of the whole

Worth, in national money

$54,941

Indiana costs less than average

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

$62,580

Kept after tax

$50,646

Worth in national money

$54,941

State rank

28

of 49 states

What this pays, and what it is worth

  • Indiana sits in the middle of the pack for interior designers. The median is $62,580, ranking 28 of 49 states with figures. Close enough to the national middle that where you live matters more than the headline suggests.
  • Against other work in Indiana, this sits in the middle: 192 of 493 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
  • Cheaper living works in this state's favor. From $62,580 you keep $50,646 after tax, and local prices stretch that to the equivalent of $54,941 at national prices. Averages run higher here, $65,460, since top earners drag the number up.
  • Indiana occupies the middle band for interior designers: a median of $62,580, ranking 28 of 49. Where nominal pay is close to the national figure, the tax and price adjustments below carry proportionally more weight in determining the real outcome.
  • Interior designers ranks 192 of 493 occupations in Indiana 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.
  • Retained pay in Indiana is $50,646 after the full tax stack, from $62,580. Because the state's price level runs below the national average, the price-adjusted equivalent is $54,941 — a real-terms figure describing purchasing power rather than compensation, and not a number that appears on any pay stub. Mean pay of $65,460 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.

Compare this career across states

Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.

Pay band: Interior Designers

The state median for this job

50thpercentile, roughly
Lowest tenth earn under$40,860
Half earn under$62,580
Top tenth earn over$94,750
This salary$62,580

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

Compare with
+$1,817take-home per year in Texas
Take-home in Indiana$50,646
Take-home in Texas$52,463
Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity−$952

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

Moving to
$0$63,732
$63,732in Texas, for the same life
To match take-home only$60,319
Raise you would need+$1,152
Prices in Texas97 vs 92

State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.

Sources and assumptions
  • Half the people doing this work in Indiana earn less than $62,580. The published range is $40,860 up to $94,750, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
  • In Indiana the take-home figure of $50,646, from $62,580, assumes one filer, no dependants, and nothing paid into a pension before tax. Each of those lowers the bill, so treat it as the plain case. City and school-district income taxes are not included either, and in a few states those are real money. It ranks 192 of 493 occupations here.
  • The wage data and the price data come from different years. That is how each is published. The price adjustment behind $54,941 uses one figure for the whole of Indiana. A city and a rural county there can differ by more than two states do. Out of 493 occupations the state publishes, this one sits at 192.
  • Reported values are medians; for interior designers in Indiana the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $40,860 to $94,750. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
  • Take-home for Indiana is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $50,646 from $62,580. Each omitted item reduces taxable income, so the figure is a lower bound on retained pay for this household shape. Municipal and school-district income taxes are excluded, which understates the burden materially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The occupation ranks 192 of 493 locally.
  • Wage and price series carry different reference periods, each published on its own schedule. The real-terms figure of $54,941, worked from $62,580, deflates by a statewide parity that conceals substantial intra-state variation, concentrated in housing — so it supports comparison between states rather than the pricing of a move to a particular Indiana address, on work sitting at 192 of 493 locally.

Questions people ask

Is this the average pay for the job?

No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $65,460, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.

Why is the pay range for this job so wide?

One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $40,860, the highest tenth $94,750, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.

What does this pay actually buy where I live?

More than the figure suggests. Prices in Indiana sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $54,941 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 Indiana adds its own income tax on top — which is why $50,646 of this wage survives to your account.

Why is this job missing from some states?

Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 49 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.

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 Indiana is $65,460. 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 ($40,860) and the ninetieth ($94,750) 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?

Indiana'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 $54,941 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 $50,646 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Indiana 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.