Librarians and Media Collections Specialists
What the pay figures show
- Washington comes first for this job on every measure. $100,030 on paper. Still first after tax. Still first at $72,955 once you adjust for what things cost. When the headline and the reality agree, say so plainly.
- For librarians and media collections specialists, Washington's $100,030 median is the highest nominally, after tax, and after regional price adjustment, at $72,955. Concordance across all three measures is uncommon and worth stating explicitly, because the absence of a reordering is itself the finding for this occupation.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$68,270
People doing it
133,790
Highest paid
$100,030
WA
Best off, really
$72,955
WA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$43,660
Highest tenth
$103,990
Lowest, really
$39,619
WV
States with data
51
National average
$72,840
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
108.56%
WA, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Geography does a lot of the work in this job. Pay roughly doubles between the lowest state and the highest. Tax and prices narrow that gap. They come nowhere near closing it — the real range is still $39,619 up to $72,955.
- About 133,790 Americans work in this job, on a middle wage of $68,270. Big enough that where you live changes the arithmetic.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $68,270 in the middle.
- The nominal spread for librarians and media collections specialists approaches a factor of two across states. Deflating for tax and price level compresses it substantially but leaves a real range of $39,619 to $72,955, indicating that most of the dispersion is real purchasing power rather than compensation for local costs.
- With 133,790 workers, librarians and media collections specialists sits in the middle of the BLS headcount distribution. The state-level spread described above therefore applies to a meaningful population rather than a niche one.
- 51 jurisdictions report librarians and media collections specialists, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: Librarians and Media Collections Specialists
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $43,660 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $68,270 |
| Top tenth earn over | $103,990 |
| This salary | $68,270 |
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 Librarians and Media Collections Specialists
The national median for this job
$68,270around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $43,660 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $68,270 |
| Top tenth | $103,990 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Librarians and Media Collections Specialists, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | West Virginia · $42,980 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Washington · $100,030 |
| Spread | $57,050 |
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 | $71,860 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $73,949 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WA | $100,030 | $79,201 | $72,955 |
| NV | $84,540 | $68,304 | $70,431 |
| MD | $88,570 | $67,296 | $64,729 |
| DC | $96,550 | $71,515 | $64,542 |
| AK | $78,810 | $64,273 | $63,189 |
| GA | $76,750 | $59,593 | $61,627 |
| TX | $71,860 | $59,384 | $61,110 |
| MN | $77,650 | $59,700 | $60,660 |
| CA | $89,790 | $67,739 | $60,169 |
| DE | $77,700 | $59,595 | $60,043 |
| ND | $62,830 | $52,664 | $59,459 |
| VA | $77,430 | $59,610 | $59,167 |
| CO | $76,480 | $59,977 | $59,159 |
| RI | $75,860 | $59,773 | $58,941 |
| CT | $79,210 | $60,948 | $58,779 |
| KY | $65,200 | $52,404 | $57,925 |
| WI | $66,870 | $53,358 | $57,314 |
| AL | $64,650 | $51,338 | $57,061 |
| NE | $64,060 | $51,441 | $56,919 |
| MT | $63,870 | $51,252 | $56,792 |
| TN | $62,090 | $52,069 | $56,282 |
| NY | $78,590 | $60,471 | $56,186 |
| NJ | $78,380 | $61,167 | $56,177 |
| NM | $62,530 | $50,650 | $56,037 |
| LA | $60,650 | $49,479 | $56,007 |
| MA | $78,540 | $60,476 | $55,873 |
| OR | $78,070 | $57,471 | $54,880 |
| OH | $60,630 | $49,945 | $54,399 |
| SC | $62,640 | $50,674 | $54,384 |
| KS | $61,900 | $48,751 | $54,189 |
| FL | $67,060 | $56,007 | $54,138 |
| IA | $58,440 | $47,528 | $53,542 |
| AR | $56,800 | $46,176 | $53,377 |
| OK | $58,180 | $46,810 | $53,021 |
| NC | $61,420 | $49,589 | $52,676 |
| MS | $56,970 | $45,769 | $52,432 |
| PA | $62,880 | $50,774 | $52,076 |
| VT | $62,360 | $50,281 | $52,032 |
| MO | $58,700 | $47,524 | $51,790 |
| MI | $60,010 | $48,098 | $51,068 |
| NH | $63,580 | $53,267 | $50,564 |
| IL | $62,700 | $49,601 | $50,175 |
| SD | $51,210 | $43,327 | $49,182 |
| AZ | $60,500 | $49,682 | $49,139 |
| HI | $68,270 | $53,113 | $48,903 |
| ME | $59,540 | $47,321 | $48,736 |
| ID | $54,130 | $43,658 | $47,753 |
| IN | $53,500 | $43,619 | $47,317 |
| UT | $53,730 | $42,961 | $45,221 |
| WY | $46,530 | $39,567 | $43,553 |
| WV | $42,980 | $35,567 | $39,619 |
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle of the range, not a starting salary and not an offer. Half of this job earn less than the figures here and half earn more, and experience, employer and city move an individual a long way from the middle. Nationally the middle earns $68,270.
- 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, Washington keeps the most at $79,201.
- Levelling out prices for this job is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — West Virginia sits at the bottom on $39,619.
- Figures are medians of the published wage distribution for librarians and media collections specialists, not entry-level or offer wages. The national median is $68,270, with half of workers below it; dispersion within a state routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, driven by tenure, employer size, sector and metropolitan area. An individual's position in the distribution is not predictable from geography alone.
- The household modeled for librarians and media collections specialists 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 Washington retains the most, $79,201. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- The price deflation applied to librarians and media collections specialists uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is West Virginia at $39,619. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — West Virginia anchors the bottom at $39,619 — and the two source series are dated independently.