Opticians, Dispensing in Washington
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$41,728
after federal, FICA and Washington tax
Tax takes
$7,492
15.2% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$38,437
Washington costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Washington — 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
$49,220
Kept after tax
$41,728
Worth in national money
$38,437
State rank
16
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- This is a good state for the work. Washington pays opticians, dispensing a middle wage of $49,220, ranking 16 of 51 states and sitting about 4.15% above the national middle.
- Against 493 occupations Washington publishes, opticians, dispensing lands at 394. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Washington is an expensive state, and the adjusted figure shows it. From $49,220 the take-home is $41,728; in national-average money that behaves like $38,437. The average comes to $55,010, above the middle, thanks to the top of the range.
- Washington's median for opticians, dispensing is $49,220, about 4.15% above the national figure and 16 of 51 states reporting. Whether that premium reaches the worker depends on the two adjustments below, which is the part a wage table cannot tell you.
- Within Washington, this work ranks 394 of 493 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.
- Take-home for opticians, dispensing in Washington, on $49,220, is $41,728; deflated by the state's price level, $38,437. ⚠️ The deflator is statewide, so it understates the erosion in the state's metropolitan areas and overstates it outside them. At $55,010 the mean overshoots the median — the usual right-skewed shape.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Opticians, Dispensing
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $41,120 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $49,220 |
| Top tenth earn over | $78,830 |
| This salary | $49,220 |
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 Washington | $41,728 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $41,728 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$4,504 |
The raise and the real gain point in opposite directions here.
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 | $49,220 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$5,447 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 109 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $49,220 as a midpoint for Washington, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $41,120 and the ninetieth is $78,830 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $41,728 take-home in Washington comes from $49,220. 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 394 of 493.
- One number stands for prices across all of Washington, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $38,437, the adjusted value of that $49,220 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 394 of 493 in the state.
- The Washington median of $49,220 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $41,120 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 $41,728, from $49,220, assumes a single Washington 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 394 of 493 locally, and the state ranks 16 of 51 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Washington, so $38,437 — the adjusted value of that $49,220 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 394 of 493 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
It is the midpoint, not the average. The average here is $55,010, dragged up by high earners; the middle figure describes a typical worker better.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
Because one job title covers very different work. The bottom tenth here earn $41,120 and the top tenth $78,830 — experience, employer and specialism separate them, and a single figure hides all three.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
A larger wage in a dearer place is not automatically more. Adjusted for local prices, this pay behaves like $38,437 of national purchasing power.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $41,728 of this wage reaches your account, because Washington takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
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 Washington is $55,010. 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 ($41,120) and the ninetieth ($78,830) 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.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Washington's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $38,437 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Washington levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $41,728 reflects the federal layer and FICA alone. Federal income tax and FICA are unchanged; states without a wage income tax generally recover revenue through consumption and property bases instead.
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.