Mathematical Science Teachers, Postsecondary
What the pay figures show
- California pays this job the most, at $130,680. Unusually, it stays on top. Tax does not overturn it. Nor do local prices — it is still first at $82,185 once levelled out. That is rarer than it sounds. For most jobs the leader changes.
- California leads for mathematical science teachers, postsecondary at $130,680 and retains the position through both adjustments, finishing first at $82,185 in price-deflated terms. That robustness is the minority case: across the largest occupations, state income tax reorders the leader roughly a third of the time and price level does so more often still. Where the nominal leader survives both, the wage premium is large enough to absorb the state's own tax and price levels.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$79,940
People doing it
47,670
Highest paid
$130,680
CA
Best off, really
$82,185
CA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$49,180
Highest tenth
$139,340
Lowest, really
$49,252
FL
States with data
48
National average
$91,550
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
112.58%
CA, 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 $49,252 to $82,185.
- Just 47,670 Americans work in this job. Small fields move around more from year to year.
- This job is not published everywhere — 48 jurisdictions have a figure, with $79,940 in the middle. Where one is missing, it was never released. California tops the ones that are.
- Geographic dispersion in mathematical science teachers, postsecondary 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 $49,252 to $82,185 — so the variation reflects genuine differences in local labor markets rather than a nominal illusion.
- 47,670 are employed nationally in mathematical science teachers, postsecondary — a small occupation, where the state spread above is more sensitive to sample composition than it would be in a large one.
- 48 jurisdictions carry a published median for mathematical science teachers, postsecondary. ⚠️ Suppression is not random: it correlates with small state-level samples, so the reported set skews toward larger employers of this occupation.
Pay band: Mathematical Science Teachers, Postsecondary
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $49,180 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $79,940 |
| Top tenth earn over | $139,340 |
| This salary | $79,940 |
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 Mathematical Science Teachers, Postsecondary
The national median for this job
$79,940around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $49,180 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $79,940 |
| Top tenth | $139,340 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Mathematical Science Teachers, Postsecondary, state by state
The national median for this job
48states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Arkansas · $54,340 |
|---|---|
| Highest | California · $130,680 |
| Spread | $76,340 |
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 | $76,990 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $79,228 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA | $130,680 | $92,525 | $82,185 |
| MI | $99,330 | $74,738 | $79,353 |
| DE | $101,510 | $74,774 | $75,336 |
| RI | $95,600 | $72,896 | $71,881 |
| LA | $79,940 | $63,056 | $71,375 |
| IA | $80,300 | $62,881 | $70,839 |
| ND | $76,770 | $62,600 | $70,677 |
| OH | $81,330 | $64,525 | $70,280 |
| NH | $91,670 | $73,320 | $69,600 |
| WY | $76,910 | $62,936 | $69,276 |
| MT | $80,610 | $62,346 | $69,086 |
| NV | $82,540 | $66,897 | $68,980 |
| NE | $79,310 | $61,720 | $68,292 |
| TN | $76,240 | $62,465 | $67,519 |
| VT | $84,860 | $65,039 | $67,303 |
| IN | $78,780 | $61,957 | $67,210 |
| UT | $83,270 | $63,705 | $67,056 |
| WI | $80,480 | $62,125 | $66,731 |
| MN | $85,570 | $64,733 | $65,774 |
| PA | $82,170 | $64,114 | $65,758 |
| SC | $77,580 | $60,580 | $65,016 |
| TX | $76,990 | $62,992 | $64,824 |
| MO | $74,640 | $58,768 | $64,044 |
| ME | $81,130 | $61,746 | $63,592 |
| WA | $85,560 | $69,021 | $63,578 |
| OR | $91,770 | $65,911 | $62,939 |
| CO | $81,930 | $63,571 | $62,705 |
| CT | $85,020 | $64,715 | $62,413 |
| NC | $73,620 | $58,193 | $61,816 |
| WV | $69,370 | $55,344 | $61,649 |
| MD | $83,360 | $63,878 | $61,442 |
| SD | $64,620 | $54,102 | $61,413 |
| NY | $87,230 | $66,083 | $61,400 |
| IL | $77,080 | $59,385 | $60,073 |
| MA | $85,490 | $65,018 | $60,069 |
| NM | $66,550 | $53,686 | $59,396 |
| OK | $64,660 | $51,725 | $58,588 |
| KY | $65,820 | $52,880 | $58,452 |
| VA | $75,830 | $58,577 | $58,141 |
| AL | $65,900 | $52,287 | $58,116 |
| NJ | $80,660 | $62,626 | $57,517 |
| AZ | $71,230 | $57,562 | $56,933 |
| MS | $61,760 | $49,426 | $56,621 |
| DC | $81,880 | $62,441 | $56,353 |
| KS | $64,330 | $50,568 | $56,209 |
| GA | $66,440 | $52,848 | $54,652 |
| AR | $54,340 | $44,290 | $51,198 |
| FL | $60,700 | $50,952 | $49,252 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for this job as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $79,940, 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.
- The take-home numbers here use the simplest possible household: one filer for this job, no children, no pension contributions, standard deduction. Real life usually reduces the tax bill below this. City and school-district income taxes are left out, and in Ohio or Pennsylvania that is a real omission. The best after-tax state here is California, at $92,525.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for this job. Inside any state, a big city costs far more than a small town, so this is a fair way to compare states with each other and a poor way to price a specific move. The wage figures and the price figures are also from different years. At the bottom of the range sits Florida, on $49,252.
- These are distribution medians for mathematical science teachers, postsecondary, with a national value of $79,940. 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.
- Retained-pay figures for mathematical science teachers, postsecondary model a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax deferrals — deliberately the simplest household, so the comparison across states isolates geography rather than personal circumstances. Local income taxes are outside the model; Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland residents should expect a meaningfully lower figure than $92,525, which leads in California.
- Real-terms results for mathematical science teachers, postsecondary rest on statewide regional price parities, which average over intra-state variation that is itself larger than much of the interstate variation. They support comparison between states and not the pricing of an individual relocation; Florida anchors the distribution at $49,252. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.