Interior Designers in Kentucky
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$47,824
after federal, FICA and Kentucky tax
Tax takes
$11,416
19.3% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$52,862
Kentucky costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Kentucky — 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
$59,240
Kept after tax
$47,824
Worth in national money
$52,862
State rank
44
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Kentucky is among the lower-paying states for interior designers. The middle earner takes $59,240, ranking 44 of 49 states — about 11.83% below the national middle. Costs here are often lower too, which the figures further down account for.
- Against other work in Kentucky, this sits in the middle: 220 of 491 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Kentucky is cheaper than average, and that shows up here. From $59,240 the take-home is $47,824; adjusted for what things actually cost, it goes as far as $52,862 would nationally. The average comes to $63,620, above the middle, thanks to the top of the range.
- Kentucky ranks 44 of 49 for interior designers, with a median of $59,240 — about 11.83% below the national figure. A nominal shortfall is not by itself a real one: lower-paying states frequently carry lower tax and lower price levels, and the adjusted figures below are where that is settled rather than assumed.
- Interior designers ranks 220 of 491 occupations in Kentucky 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.
- Post-tax income for interior designers in Kentucky, on $59,240, is $47,824 — equivalent to $52,862 once regional price parity is applied. ⚠️ The adjustment uses a statewide index that describes no particular address; within-state price variation, concentrated in housing, routinely exceeds the difference between two states. At $63,620 the mean overshoots the median — the usual right-skewed shape.
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Pay band: Interior Designers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $38,690 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $59,240 |
| Top tenth earn over | $97,470 |
| This salary | $59,240 |
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 Kentucky | $47,824 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $49,779 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$1,636 |
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 | $56,806 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$1,978 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 90 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $59,240 as a midpoint for Kentucky, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $38,690 and the ninetieth is $97,470 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $47,824 take-home in Kentucky comes from $59,240. 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 220 of 491.
- One number stands for prices across all of Kentucky, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $52,862, the adjusted value of that $59,240 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 220 of 491 in the state.
- The Kentucky median of $59,240 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $38,690 to $97,470. 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 $47,824, from $59,240, assumes a single Kentucky 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 220 of 491 locally, and the state ranks 44 of 49 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Kentucky, so $52,862 — the adjusted value of that $59,240 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 220 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 $63,620 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 $38,690, the highest tenth $97,470, 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 $52,862.
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 Kentucky adds its own income tax on top — which is why $47,824 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 Kentucky is $63,620. 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 ($38,690) and the ninetieth ($97,470) 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?
Kentucky'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 $52,862 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 $47,824 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Kentucky 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.