Interior Designers in Tennessee
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$53,331
after federal, FICA and Tennessee tax
Tax takes
$10,329
16.2% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$57,646
Tennessee costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Tennessee — 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
$63,660
Kept after tax
$53,331
Worth in national money
$57,646
State rank
25
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Tennessee sits in the middle of the pack for interior designers. The median is $63,660, ranking 25 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 Tennessee, this sits in the middle: 163 of 491 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Here is where Tennessee does better than its wage suggests. From a median of $63,660 you keep $53,331, and because things cost less here than the national average, that behaves like $57,646 would elsewhere. The average is higher, $68,480, because the best-paid pull it up.
- Tennessee occupies the middle band for interior designers: a median of $63,660, ranking 25 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 163 of 491 occupations in Tennessee 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.
- After federal, FICA and Tennessee income tax, retained pay for interior designers on $63,660 is $53,331. Deflating by the state's price level — below the national average — gives $57,646 in national-average terms. ⚠️ That figure is purchasing power, not a wage, and nobody is paid it; it is what the take-home buys. The mean of $68,480 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.
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Pay band: Interior Designers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $40,240 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $63,660 |
| Top tenth earn over | $101,460 |
| This salary | $63,660 |
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 Tennessee | $53,331 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $53,331 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$2,764 |
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 | $63,660 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$3,415 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 93 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $63,660 as a midpoint for Tennessee, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $40,240 and the ninetieth is $101,460 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $53,331 take-home in Tennessee comes from $63,660. 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 163 of 491.
- One number stands for prices across all of Tennessee, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $57,646, the adjusted value of that $63,660 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 163 of 491 in the state.
- The Tennessee median of $63,660 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $40,240 to $101,460. 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 $53,331, from $63,660, assumes a single Tennessee 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 163 of 491 locally, and the state ranks 25 of 49 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Tennessee, so $57,646 — the adjusted value of that $63,660 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 163 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 $68,480 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 $40,240, the highest tenth $101,460, 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 Tennessee sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $57,646 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $53,331 of this wage reaches your account, because Tennessee takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
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 Tennessee is $68,480. 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 ($40,240) and the ninetieth ($101,460) 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?
Tennessee'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 $57,646 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Tennessee levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $53,331 reflects the federal layer and FICA alone. Federal income tax and FICA are unchanged; states without a wage income tax generally recover revenue through consumption and property bases instead.
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.