Ophthalmic Medical Technicians
What the pay figures show
- Minnesota comes first for ophthalmic medical technicians on every measure. $63,080 on paper. Still first after tax. Still first at $50,905 once you adjust for what things cost. When the headline and the reality agree, say so plainly.
- For ophthalmic medical technicians, Minnesota's $63,080 median is the highest nominally, after tax, and after regional price adjustment, at $50,905. Concordance across all three measures is uncommon and worth stating explicitly, because the absence of a reordering is itself the finding for this occupation.
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$45,570
People doing it
71,010
Highest paid
$63,080
MN
Best off, really
$50,905
MN, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$35,700
Highest tenth
$61,940
Lowest, really
$31,016
UT
States with data
51
National average
$47,060
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
98.42%
MN, 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 $31,016 and $50,905. Geography is not the main lever on pay here.
- This is a small job: about 71,010 people nationally. Fewer workers means each state figure is built on less data.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $45,570 in the middle.
- Wages for ophthalmic medical technicians cluster comparatively tightly across states, and the clustering strengthens after tax and price deflation — a real range of $31,016 to $50,905. Occupation-level factors such as specialisation and employer type therefore explain more of an individual's pay here than location does.
- With 71,010 workers, ophthalmic medical technicians is among the smaller occupations BLS publishes. Treat single-state figures as indicative rather than precise; suppression and sampling error both bite harder at this scale.
- 51 jurisdictions report ophthalmic medical technicians, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: Ophthalmic Medical Technicians
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $35,700 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $45,570 |
| Top tenth earn over | $61,940 |
| This salary | $45,570 |
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 Ophthalmic Medical Technicians
The national median for this job
$45,570around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $35,700 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $45,570 |
| Top tenth | $61,940 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Ophthalmic Medical Technicians, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Wyoming · $35,740 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Minnesota · $63,080 |
| Spread | $27,340 |
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 | $43,640 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $44,909 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| MN | $63,080 | $50,099 | $50,905 |
| WI | $56,420 | $45,586 | $48,966 |
| ND | $46,190 | $39,294 | $44,364 |
| MT | $47,290 | $38,712 | $42,897 |
| VT | $50,090 | $41,006 | $42,433 |
| HI | $58,240 | $45,993 | $42,347 |
| AK | $49,970 | $42,331 | $41,617 |
| SD | $42,430 | $36,273 | $41,174 |
| IA | $44,030 | $36,497 | $41,115 |
| NE | $45,210 | $37,153 | $41,109 |
| MI | $46,750 | $38,007 | $40,355 |
| ME | $48,120 | $38,916 | $40,080 |
| CA | $54,490 | $44,501 | $39,528 |
| NH | $49,110 | $41,640 | $39,527 |
| NC | $45,150 | $37,165 | $39,479 |
| KS | $43,700 | $35,143 | $39,063 |
| IN | $43,490 | $35,871 | $38,912 |
| MD | $50,070 | $40,397 | $38,856 |
| AZ | $47,040 | $39,203 | $38,775 |
| FL | $46,830 | $39,808 | $38,480 |
| TX | $43,640 | $37,245 | $38,327 |
| IL | $47,100 | $37,838 | $38,276 |
| WA | $48,840 | $41,423 | $38,156 |
| PA | $45,050 | $36,995 | $37,943 |
| RI | $46,500 | $38,219 | $37,687 |
| CT | $48,270 | $39,043 | $37,654 |
| CO | $46,260 | $38,023 | $37,505 |
| OH | $40,350 | $34,208 | $37,259 |
| NJ | $49,050 | $40,429 | $37,131 |
| DC | $50,790 | $41,108 | $37,100 |
| MA | $49,750 | $39,987 | $36,943 |
| LA | $38,750 | $32,539 | $36,832 |
| OR | $50,020 | $38,545 | $36,807 |
| SC | $40,400 | $34,134 | $36,633 |
| MO | $40,290 | $33,597 | $36,613 |
| DE | $44,540 | $36,063 | $36,334 |
| NY | $48,440 | $39,083 | $36,314 |
| AR | $37,340 | $31,260 | $36,135 |
| TN | $38,890 | $33,428 | $36,133 |
| NM | $38,610 | $32,510 | $35,968 |
| KY | $38,990 | $32,261 | $35,661 |
| OK | $37,920 | $31,443 | $35,615 |
| ID | $38,280 | $31,762 | $34,742 |
| MS | $36,220 | $29,926 | $34,283 |
| WV | $36,730 | $30,753 | $34,256 |
| WY | $35,740 | $30,897 | $34,010 |
| NV | $37,660 | $32,440 | $33,450 |
| AL | $36,680 | $30,094 | $33,449 |
| GA | $39,150 | $32,282 | $33,384 |
| VA | $40,920 | $33,467 | $33,218 |
| UT | $35,950 | $29,466 | $31,016 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for ophthalmic medical technicians as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $45,570, 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.
- Take-home figures for ophthalmic medical technicians assume one person filing alone, with no dependants and nothing going into a pension before tax. Any of those lowers the tax and raises what you keep, so treat these as the plain case rather than your case. Local city income taxes are not included either, and in a few states those matter. In Minnesota, the best state after tax, the figure works out at $50,099.
- The price adjustment for ophthalmic medical technicians uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Utah anchors the bottom at $31,016. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- These are distribution medians for ophthalmic medical technicians, with a national value of $45,570. 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.
- Take-home calculations for ophthalmic medical technicians assume a single filer with no dependants, the standard deduction, and no pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions. Each omitted item reduces taxable income, so the figures function as a lower bound on retained pay for this household shape; the highest such figure is $50,099, in Minnesota. Municipal and school-district income taxes are excluded, which understates the burden materially in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and parts of a few other states.
- Real-terms figures for ophthalmic medical technicians deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.