Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
What the pay figures show
- Massachusetts comes first for this job on every measure. $60,790 on paper. Still first after tax. Still first at $53,980 once you adjust for what things cost. When the headline and the reality agree, say so plainly.
- For mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders, Massachusetts's $60,790 median is the highest nominally, after tax, and after regional price adjustment, at $53,980. Concordance across all three measures is uncommon and worth stating explicitly, because the absence of a reordering is itself the finding for this occupation.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$48,990
People doing it
94,920
Highest paid
$60,790
MA
Best off, really
$53,980
WY, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$36,790
Highest tenth
$70,200
Lowest, really
$34,597
NM
States with data
49
National average
$52,090
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
90.85%
WY, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Nationally, this job pays within a fairly narrow band. Adjust for tax and for local prices and the band tightens again, to between $34,597 and $53,980. Geography is not the main lever on pay here.
- Only 94,920 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- This job is not published everywhere — 49 jurisdictions have a figure, with $48,990 in the middle. Where one is missing, it was never released. Massachusetts tops the ones that are.
- Wages for mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders cluster comparatively tightly across states, and the clustering strengthens after tax and price deflation — a real range of $34,597 to $53,980. Occupation-level factors such as specialisation and employer type therefore explain more of an individual's pay here than location does.
- National employment in mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders is 94,920. ⚠️ At this headcount the state-level medians rest on comparatively thin samples, and year-to-year movement in any one state reflects sampling as much as wages.
- 49 jurisdictions carry a published median for mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders. ⚠️ Suppression is not random: it correlates with small state-level samples, so the reported set skews toward larger employers of this occupation.
Pay band: Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $36,790 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $48,990 |
| Top tenth earn over | $70,200 |
| This salary | $48,990 |
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 Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
The national median for this job
$48,990around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $36,790 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $48,990 |
| Top tenth | $70,200 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, state by state
The national median for this job
49states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | New Mexico · $36,980 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Massachusetts · $60,790 |
| Spread | $23,810 |
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 | $45,320 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $46,638 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WY | $58,320 | $49,040 | $53,980 |
| MN | $59,270 | $47,296 | $48,057 |
| IA | $51,570 | $42,269 | $47,618 |
| SD | $49,000 | $41,552 | $47,167 |
| WV | $51,020 | $41,687 | $46,437 |
| ND | $48,000 | $40,748 | $46,006 |
| ME | $55,540 | $44,377 | $45,704 |
| WI | $52,200 | $42,403 | $45,547 |
| KS | $50,750 | $40,414 | $44,922 |
| MO | $50,340 | $41,200 | $44,898 |
| MA | $60,790 | $48,305 | $44,629 |
| LA | $47,330 | $39,176 | $44,344 |
| NE | $49,050 | $40,063 | $44,330 |
| TN | $47,840 | $40,619 | $43,906 |
| KY | $48,490 | $39,562 | $43,731 |
| OH | $47,720 | $39,927 | $43,488 |
| OK | $47,000 | $38,330 | $43,416 |
| IL | $53,560 | $42,709 | $43,204 |
| MS | $46,410 | $37,706 | $43,195 |
| NJ | $57,810 | $46,984 | $43,151 |
| AR | $44,650 | $36,863 | $42,612 |
| SC | $47,740 | $39,689 | $42,596 |
| IN | $47,650 | $39,091 | $42,405 |
| NV | $48,460 | $41,118 | $42,398 |
| PA | $50,550 | $41,245 | $42,303 |
| WA | $53,800 | $45,408 | $41,827 |
| CT | $53,830 | $43,222 | $41,684 |
| NH | $51,920 | $43,898 | $41,670 |
| DE | $51,460 | $41,239 | $41,549 |
| AK | $49,740 | $42,146 | $41,435 |
| AL | $46,050 | $37,211 | $41,359 |
| MD | $53,480 | $42,975 | $41,336 |
| NC | $47,020 | $38,593 | $40,996 |
| ID | $44,690 | $36,573 | $40,003 |
| UT | $47,180 | $37,990 | $39,988 |
| VA | $49,970 | $40,218 | $39,919 |
| AZ | $48,280 | $40,168 | $39,729 |
| TX | $45,320 | $38,595 | $39,717 |
| NY | $53,170 | $42,628 | $39,607 |
| GA | $47,000 | $38,198 | $39,502 |
| CO | $48,520 | $39,739 | $39,198 |
| VT | $45,420 | $37,410 | $38,712 |
| RI | $47,610 | $39,069 | $38,525 |
| MI | $44,310 | $36,151 | $38,383 |
| FL | $46,000 | $39,141 | $37,835 |
| OR | $50,420 | $38,831 | $37,080 |
| CA | $50,640 | $41,638 | $36,985 |
| MT | $38,410 | $31,994 | $35,453 |
| NM | $36,980 | $31,271 | $34,597 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for this job as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $48,990, 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 this job. 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, Wyoming keeps the most at $49,040.
- 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 New Mexico, on $34,597.
- These are distribution medians for mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders, with a national value of $48,990. 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 mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders 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 Wyoming retains the most, $49,040. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders 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; New Mexico anchors the distribution at $34,597. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.