Molding, Coremaking, and Casting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic in Maine
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$47,093
after federal, FICA and Maine tax
Tax takes
$12,137
20.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$48,501
Maine costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Maine — 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
$59,230
Kept after tax
$47,093
Worth in national money
$48,501
State rank
3
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- This is a good state for the work. Maine pays this job a middle wage of $59,230, ranking 3 of 49 states and sitting about 33.55% above the national middle.
- Against other work in Maine, this sits in the middle: 250 of 484 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $59,230, tax leaves $47,093, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $48,501 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $59,830, since top earners drag the number up.
- Maine's median for molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic is $59,230, about 33.55% above the national figure and 3 of 49 states reporting. Whether that premium reaches the worker depends on the two adjustments below, which is the part a wage table cannot tell you.
- Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic ranks 250 of 484 occupations in Maine by median pay, in the middle bands. Within-state and national positions are separate measurements and a job commonly sits in different quartiles on each.
- Because Maine sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic — median $59,230 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $47,093 retained, $48,501 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $59,830 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Molding, Coremaking, and Casting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $46,350 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $59,230 |
| Top tenth earn over | $78,830 |
| This salary | $59,230 |
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 Maine | $47,093 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $49,771 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,717 |
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 | $55,897 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,286 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $59,230 as a midpoint for Maine, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $46,350 and the ninetieth is $78,830 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $47,093 take-home in Maine comes from $59,230. 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 250 of 484.
- Two cautions on $48,501, the adjusted value of that $59,230 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Maine. No actual address matches that. The wage figures and price figures are also from different years. Each is published on its own timetable. This work sits at 250 of 484 locally.
- The Maine median of $59,230 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $46,350 to $78,830. 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 $47,093, from $59,230, assumes a single Maine 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 250 of 484 locally, and the state ranks 3 of 49 for it.
- This $48,501 adjusted figure, worked from $59,230, rests on a state-level price parity averaging over within-state dispersion larger than much of the between-state dispersion. Wage and price vintages differ by publication schedule. The result is directionally sound and not address-specific, for work at 250 of 484 in the state. The occupation ranks 250 of 484 locally.
Questions people ask
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
The range here is narrow. From $46,350 at the bottom tenth to $78,830 at the top, pay for this work clusters rather than spreads.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Maine sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $48,501 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 Maine adds its own income tax on top — which is why $47,093 of this wage survives to your account.
Why is this job missing from some states?
A blank is a suppression, not a zero. 49 states have a published figure for this work; the others had too few responses to release one.
What is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?
The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($46,350 to $78,830) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Maine rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Maine'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 $48,501 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 $47,093 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Maine 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 49 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.