Light Truck Drivers in Texas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$36,329
after federal, FICA and Texas tax
Tax takes
$6,171
14.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$37,385
Texas costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Texas — 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
$42,500
Kept after tax
$36,329
Worth in national money
$37,385
State rank
40
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for light truck drivers is on the low side in Texas. The middle earner gets $42,500. That is 40 of 51 states, and about 5.26% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against 493 occupations Texas publishes, light truck drivers lands at 372. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $42,500, tax leaves $36,329, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $37,385 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $46,950, since top earners drag the number up.
- For light truck drivers, Texas sits in the lower band at $42,500, ranking 40 of 51 and trailing the national median by about 5.26%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Within Texas, this work ranks 372 of 493 occupations by median pay, in the bottom quartile. The within-state position is the more salient one for anyone weighing this job against alternatives available to them locally.
- Because Texas sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for light truck drivers — median $42,500 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $36,329 retained, $37,385 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $46,950 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Light Truck Drivers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $28,120 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $42,500 |
| Top tenth earn over | $91,280 |
| This salary | $42,500 |
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 Texas | $36,329 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Florida | $36,329 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$2,268 |
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 | $42,500 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$2,921 |
| Prices in Florida | 103 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $42,500 as a midpoint for Texas, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $28,120 and the ninetieth is $91,280 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $36,329 take-home in Texas comes from $42,500. 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 372 of 493.
- The wage data and the price data come from different years. That is how each is published. The price adjustment behind $37,385 uses one figure for the whole of Texas. 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 372.
- The Texas median of $42,500 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $28,120 to $91,280. 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 $36,329, from $42,500, assumes a single Texas 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 372 of 493 locally, and the state ranks 40 of 51 for it.
- Wage and price series carry different reference periods, each published on its own schedule. The real-terms figure of $37,385, worked from $42,500, 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 Texas address, on work sitting at 372 of 493 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 $46,950 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?
The label is broader than the work. From $28,120 at the bottom tenth to $91,280 at the top, the same title covers roles that share little beyond a name.
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 $37,385.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Most of it arrives. $36,329 lands after tax, since there is no state income tax on wages here — though the federal floor is identical in every state.
Can I compare this job across every state?
All 51 jurisdictions report this work, which makes the ranking a like-for-like one.
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 Texas is $46,950. 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 ($28,120) and the ninetieth ($91,280) 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?
Texas'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 $37,385 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?
Texas levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $36,329 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.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.