Library Technicians
What the pay figures show
- For once the obvious answer is right. Washington pays library technicians best, at $62,570. It keeps that lead after tax. It keeps it after local prices too — $48,318 in comparable money. Most jobs are not this tidy.
- The nominal leader for library technicians is also the real leader: Washington at $62,570, holding through tax and through price deflation to $48,318. Both adjustments leave the ordering at the top intact, which indicates a wage premium large enough to dominate the state's tax burden and price level rather than merely offset them.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$44,580
People doing it
68,690
Highest paid
$62,570
WA
Best off, really
$48,318
WA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$29,300
Highest tenth
$63,080
Lowest, really
$26,111
WY
States with data
51
National average
$45,500
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
108.56%
WA, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Where you do this job matters enormously. The best state pays roughly twice what the worst does. Prices alone cannot explain a gap that size. Level everything out and the range still runs $26,111 to $48,318.
- Just 68,690 Americans work in this job. Small fields move around more from year to year.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $44,580 in the middle.
- Geographic dispersion in library technicians is unusually wide: the top state's median is approximately double the bottom's, a spread that price differentials cannot account for. The real-terms range, after tax and price deflation, still runs $26,111 to $48,318 — so the variation reflects genuine differences in local labor markets rather than a nominal illusion.
- 68,690 are employed nationally in library technicians — a small occupation, where the state spread above is more sensitive to sample composition than it would be in a large one.
- 51 jurisdictions report library technicians, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: Library Technicians
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $29,300 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $44,580 |
| Top tenth earn over | $63,080 |
| This salary | $44,580 |
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 Library Technicians
The national median for this job
$44,580around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $29,300 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $44,580 |
| Top tenth | $63,080 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Library Technicians, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Wyoming · $26,850 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Washington · $62,570 |
| Spread | $35,720 |
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 | $38,640 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $39,763 |
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 | $62,570 | $52,455 | $48,318 |
| CT | $57,060 | $45,639 | $44,016 |
| DC | $61,040 | $48,705 | $43,956 |
| VT | $50,090 | $41,006 | $42,433 |
| MN | $51,110 | $41,295 | $41,959 |
| NC | $46,520 | $38,211 | $40,590 |
| NV | $45,650 | $38,860 | $40,070 |
| RI | $48,740 | $39,935 | $39,379 |
| AK | $46,940 | $39,896 | $39,224 |
| NH | $48,650 | $41,270 | $39,176 |
| PA | $46,100 | $37,806 | $38,775 |
| CA | $53,260 | $43,586 | $38,715 |
| DE | $47,580 | $38,337 | $38,625 |
| IL | $47,120 | $37,853 | $38,292 |
| ND | $39,240 | $33,709 | $38,059 |
| MD | $48,920 | $39,527 | $38,020 |
| CO | $46,680 | $38,342 | $37,819 |
| KS | $41,960 | $33,842 | $37,617 |
| NY | $50,060 | $40,297 | $37,442 |
| MA | $50,430 | $40,499 | $37,417 |
| HI | $50,870 | $40,625 | $37,405 |
| ME | $44,520 | $36,267 | $37,351 |
| LA | $39,180 | $32,872 | $37,209 |
| NJ | $48,840 | $40,272 | $36,987 |
| OR | $49,970 | $38,509 | $36,773 |
| VA | $45,560 | $36,928 | $36,654 |
| IA | $38,590 | $32,332 | $36,424 |
| NM | $38,830 | $32,678 | $36,153 |
| MO | $39,160 | $32,742 | $35,681 |
| MT | $38,220 | $31,850 | $35,293 |
| OH | $37,920 | $32,322 | $35,205 |
| UT | $40,160 | $32,661 | $34,380 |
| TX | $38,640 | $33,227 | $34,193 |
| NE | $36,920 | $30,869 | $34,156 |
| FL | $41,080 | $35,188 | $34,014 |
| TN | $36,400 | $31,427 | $33,970 |
| AL | $37,150 | $30,451 | $33,846 |
| AZ | $40,510 | $34,120 | $33,747 |
| SC | $36,070 | $30,743 | $32,994 |
| KY | $35,700 | $29,733 | $32,866 |
| IN | $35,560 | $29,733 | $32,254 |
| GA | $37,320 | $30,903 | $31,958 |
| ID | $34,510 | $28,933 | $31,647 |
| WI | $35,000 | $29,430 | $31,613 |
| MI | $34,680 | $28,822 | $30,602 |
| SD | $29,590 | $25,956 | $29,463 |
| WV | $30,300 | $25,789 | $28,728 |
| AR | $28,570 | $24,537 | $28,363 |
| OK | $29,440 | $25,011 | $28,329 |
| MS | $27,080 | $22,919 | $26,256 |
| WY | $26,850 | $23,721 | $26,111 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for library technicians as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $44,580, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for library technicians. 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 $52,455.
- The price adjustment for library technicians uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Wyoming anchors the bottom at $26,111. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- These are distribution medians for library technicians, with a national value of $44,580. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
- The household modeled for library technicians 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, $52,455. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for library technicians deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.