Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators in Maine
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$45,467
after federal, FICA and Maine tax
Tax takes
$11,553
20.3% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$46,826
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
$57,020
Kept after tax
$45,467
Worth in national money
$46,826
State rank
23
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Maine pays this job around $57,020 at the midpoint, 23 of 50 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against other work in Maine, this sits in the middle: 270 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 $57,020, tax leaves $45,467, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $46,826 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $61,100, since top earners drag the number up.
- For paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators the Maine median is $57,020, ranking 23 of 50 states reporting. Mid-band nominal positions are the ones most frequently reordered by the adjustments, because no large wage premium exists to absorb a state's tax or price level.
- Paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators ranks 270 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 paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators — median $57,020 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $45,467 retained, $46,826 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $61,100 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $45,650 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $57,020 |
| Top tenth earn over | $89,100 |
| This salary | $57,020 |
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 | $45,467 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $47,996 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,565 |
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 | $53,873 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,102 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle, not an offer. Half of paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators in Maine earn under $57,020 and half over. The published range runs $45,650 at the tenth percentile to $89,100 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- That $45,467 take-home in Maine comes from $57,020. 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 270 of 484.
- One number stands for prices across all of Maine, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $46,826, the adjusted value of that $57,020 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 270 of 484 in the state.
- Figures are distribution medians for paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators in Maine, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $45,650 to $89,100; within-state dispersion of that width routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, so tenure, employer and metropolitan area predict an individual's pay better than geography does.
- Retained pay of $45,467, from $57,020, 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 270 of 484 locally, and the state ranks 23 of 50 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Maine, so $46,826 — the adjusted value of that $57,020 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 270 of 484 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
It is the midpoint, not the average. The average here is $61,100, dragged up by high earners; the middle figure describes a typical worker better.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $45,650, the highest tenth $89,100, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
A smaller wage in a cheaper place is not automatically less. Adjusted for local prices, this is worth $46,826.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Four deductions, stacked. The federal layer and the two payroll taxes apply wherever you work; Maine then takes its own share, leaving $45,467.
Why is this job missing from some states?
A blank is a suppression, not a zero. 50 states have a published figure for this work; the others had too few responses to release one.
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 Maine is $61,100. 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 ($45,650) and the ninetieth ($89,100) 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.
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 $46,826 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 $45,467 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 50 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.