Merchandise Displayers and Window Trimmers in Illinois
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$32,688
after federal, FICA and Illinois tax
Tax takes
$7,582
18.8% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$33,067
Illinois costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Illinois — 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
$40,270
Kept after tax
$32,688
Worth in national money
$33,067
State rank
19
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Illinois pays this job around $40,270 at the midpoint, 19 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against 494 occupations Illinois publishes, this job lands at 427. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $40,270, tax leaves $32,688, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $33,067 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $45,120, since top earners drag the number up.
- For merchandise displayers and window trimmers the Illinois median is $40,270, ranking 19 of 51 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 Illinois, this work ranks 427 of 494 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 Illinois sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for merchandise displayers and window trimmers — median $40,270 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $32,688 retained, $33,067 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $45,120 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Merchandise Displayers and Window Trimmers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $34,850 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $40,270 |
| Top tenth earn over | $66,060 |
| This salary | $40,270 |
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 Illinois | $32,688 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $34,537 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,474 |
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 | $37,969 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,992 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 99 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $40,270 as a midpoint for Illinois, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $34,850 and the ninetieth is $66,060 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $32,688 take-home in Illinois comes from $40,270. 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 427 of 494.
- One number stands for prices across all of Illinois, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $33,067, the adjusted value of that $40,270 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 427 of 494 in the state.
- The Illinois median of $40,270 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $34,850 to $66,060. 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 $32,688, from $40,270, assumes a single Illinois 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 427 of 494 locally, and the state ranks 19 of 51 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Illinois, so $33,067 — the adjusted value of that $40,270 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 427 of 494 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $45,120, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $34,850, the highest tenth $66,060, 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 Illinois sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $33,067 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Into four separate taxes, not one. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare apply everywhere, and Illinois adds its own income tax on top — which is why $32,688 of this wage survives to your account.
Can I compare this job across every state?
This occupation is published everywhere — all 51 of them — so comparing states measures real differences rather than gaps in the data.
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 Illinois is $45,120. 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 ($34,850) and the ninetieth ($66,060) 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?
Illinois'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 $33,067 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 $32,688 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Illinois 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.
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.