Materials Engineers in Minnesota
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$77,856
after federal, FICA and Minnesota tax
Tax takes
$28,364
26.7% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$79,108
Minnesota costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Minnesota — 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
$106,220
Kept after tax
$77,856
Worth in national money
$79,108
State rank
23
of 45 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Minnesota pays materials engineers around $106,220 at the midpoint, 23 of 45 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- This is one of the better-paid jobs in Minnesota. It ranks 54 out of 490 occupations the state publishes figures for, which puts it in the top quarter locally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $106,220, tax leaves $77,856, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $79,108 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $122,710, since top earners drag the number up.
- For materials engineers the Minnesota median is $106,220, ranking 23 of 45 states reporting. Mid-band nominal positions are the ones most frequently reordered by the adjustments, because no large wage premium exists to absorb a state's tax or price level.
- Within Minnesota, materials engineers ranks 54 of 490 occupations by median pay, placing it in the top quartile of the local distribution. This is the comparison a resident actually makes — against neighbors rather than against the same job elsewhere.
- Because Minnesota sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for materials engineers — median $106,220 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $77,856 retained, $79,108 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $122,710 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Materials Engineers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $84,760 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $106,220 |
| Top tenth earn over | $175,320 |
| This salary | $106,220 |
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 Minnesota | $77,856 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $83,556 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$6,876 |
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 | $98,118 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$9,498 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 98 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $106,220 as a midpoint for Minnesota, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $84,760 and the ninetieth is $175,320 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Minnesota's $77,856, worked from $106,220. That is on purpose. It lets states be compared with each other, not with each other's family circumstances. Local city taxes are left out. Locally this work ranks 54 of 490.
- One number stands for prices across all of Minnesota, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $79,108, the adjusted value of that $106,220 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 54 of 490 in the state.
- The Minnesota median of $106,220 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $84,760 to $175,320. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- The Minnesota take-home of $77,856, on $106,220 for work ranking 54 of 490 locally, models the simplest household deliberately: holding it constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful. It also means the absolute figure overstates liability for most real filers, and municipal income taxes are outside the model entirely. The occupation ranks 54 of 490 in the state.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Minnesota, so $79,108 — the adjusted value of that $106,220 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 54 of 490 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 $122,710 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 $84,760, the highest tenth $175,320, 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 Minnesota sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $79,108 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Three of them are federal and one is not. After income tax, Social Security, Medicare and Minnesota's own levy, $77,856 remains.
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 45 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 Minnesota is $122,710. 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 ($84,760) and the ninetieth ($175,320) 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?
Minnesota'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 $79,108 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 $77,856 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Minnesota 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 45 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.