Outdoor Power Equipment and Other Small Engine Mechanics
What the pay figures show
- Alaska comes first for this job on every measure. $60,190 on paper. Still first after tax. Still first at $49,690 once you adjust for what things cost. When the headline and the reality agree, say so plainly.
- For outdoor power equipment and other small engine mechanics, Alaska's $60,190 median is the highest nominally, after tax, and after regional price adjustment, at $49,690. 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
Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.
Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$47,880
People doing it
36,060
Highest paid
$60,190
AK
Best off, really
$49,690
AK, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$34,670
Highest tenth
$67,260
Lowest, really
$35,627
MD
States with data
49
National average
$49,990
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
101.72%
AK, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- The state you work in changes what this job pays, but less than you would expect. Level out tax and prices and the whole country sits between $35,627 and $49,690. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- Just 36,060 Americans work in this job. Small fields move around more from year to year.
- Not every state reports this one. The figures here cover 49 jurisdictions, and the middle wage across them is $47,880. A state you do not see is one with no published number, not one paying nothing. Of those published, Alaska pays most.
- Interstate variation for outdoor power equipment and other small engine mechanics is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $35,627 to $49,690. A differential of this magnitude is real but rarely decisive on its own, which is worth stating plainly against wage tables that present nominal gaps without either adjustment.
- 36,060 are employed nationally in outdoor power equipment and other small engine mechanics — a small occupation, where the state spread above is more sensitive to sample composition than it would be in a large one.
- BLS publishes an occupational median for outdoor power equipment and other small engine mechanics in 49 jurisdictions, short of the full set. ⚠️ Absence reflects estimate suppression — small samples or disclosure rules — rather than absence of employment, so the state comparison above is over the published subset.
Pay band: Outdoor Power Equipment and Other Small Engine Mechanics
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $34,670 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $47,880 |
| Top tenth earn over | $67,260 |
| This salary | $47,880 |
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 Outdoor Power Equipment and Other Small Engine Mechanics
The national median for this job
$47,880around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $34,670 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $47,880 |
| Top tenth | $67,260 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Outdoor Power Equipment and Other Small Engine Mechanics, state by state
The national median for this job
49states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Arkansas · $37,610 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Alaska · $60,190 |
| Spread | $22,580 |
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 | $45,720 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $47,049 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AK | $60,190 | $50,543 | $49,690 |
| NV | $56,750 | $47,779 | $49,266 |
| MO | $55,120 | $44,816 | $48,839 |
| ID | $55,320 | $44,551 | $48,730 |
| ND | $50,540 | $42,789 | $48,310 |
| NH | $57,610 | $48,470 | $46,010 |
| MN | $55,990 | $44,884 | $45,606 |
| NE | $49,710 | $40,564 | $44,883 |
| CT | $56,680 | $45,355 | $43,741 |
| DE | $54,230 | $43,311 | $43,637 |
| MT | $47,880 | $39,158 | $43,391 |
| VT | $51,250 | $41,899 | $43,358 |
| UT | $50,840 | $40,768 | $42,912 |
| IA | $45,830 | $37,875 | $42,668 |
| MA | $57,830 | $46,075 | $42,568 |
| SC | $47,510 | $39,520 | $42,414 |
| TN | $46,060 | $39,189 | $42,360 |
| CO | $52,620 | $42,853 | $42,269 |
| HI | $58,110 | $45,898 | $42,260 |
| WI | $48,140 | $39,341 | $42,258 |
| OH | $46,110 | $38,678 | $42,127 |
| IN | $47,260 | $38,789 | $42,078 |
| WA | $53,990 | $45,561 | $41,968 |
| RI | $52,160 | $42,555 | $41,962 |
| KS | $46,540 | $37,267 | $41,423 |
| NC | $47,370 | $38,860 | $41,280 |
| LA | $43,200 | $35,981 | $40,728 |
| SD | $41,580 | $35,590 | $40,399 |
| MI | $46,730 | $37,992 | $40,338 |
| TX | $45,720 | $38,916 | $40,047 |
| ME | $47,960 | $38,799 | $39,959 |
| GA | $47,360 | $38,469 | $39,783 |
| OK | $42,630 | $35,015 | $39,661 |
| FL | $47,840 | $40,619 | $39,264 |
| NM | $42,520 | $35,484 | $39,258 |
| KY | $43,110 | $35,428 | $39,160 |
| NJ | $52,000 | $42,637 | $39,158 |
| PA | $46,270 | $37,937 | $38,910 |
| AL | $43,110 | $34,978 | $38,877 |
| AZ | $46,580 | $38,845 | $38,420 |
| VA | $47,480 | $38,361 | $38,076 |
| NY | $50,640 | $40,732 | $37,846 |
| IL | $46,190 | $37,152 | $37,582 |
| CA | $50,790 | $41,750 | $37,084 |
| OR | $50,020 | $38,545 | $36,807 |
| WV | $39,210 | $32,667 | $36,389 |
| AR | $37,610 | $31,467 | $36,374 |
| MS | $37,900 | $31,209 | $35,752 |
| MD | $45,630 | $37,040 | $35,627 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for this job as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $47,880, 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, Alaska keeps the most at $50,543.
- 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 Maryland, on $35,627.
- These are distribution medians for outdoor power equipment and other small engine mechanics, with a national value of $47,880. 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 outdoor power equipment and other small engine mechanics 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 Alaska retains the most, $50,543. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for outdoor power equipment and other small engine mechanics 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; Maryland anchors the distribution at $35,627. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.