Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators in Massachusetts
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$48,426
after federal, FICA and Massachusetts tax
Tax takes
$12,524
20.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$44,740
Massachusetts costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Massachusetts — 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
$60,950
Kept after tax
$48,426
Worth in national money
$44,740
State rank
17
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Neither high nor low. Massachusetts is 17 of 50 states for this job, with a middle wage of $60,950. What that is worth is the question the rest of this page answers.
- Against other work in Massachusetts, this sits in the middle: 285 of 485 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Costs eat into it here. Of $60,950, tax leaves $48,426 — and because Massachusetts is dearer than average, that stretches only as far as $44,740 would nationally. Averages run higher here, $64,620, since top earners drag the number up.
- Massachusetts ranks 17 of 50 for paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators at $60,950. The nominal figure is unremarkable; the adjusted figures are where the state's actual position for this occupation is determined.
- Paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators ranks 285 of 485 occupations in Massachusetts 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.
- After tax, $48,426 remains from the Massachusetts median of $60,950 for this occupation. Applying the state's above-average price parity yields $44,740 in national-average terms — the quantity relevant to a relocation decision, and the one absent from essentially every published wage comparison. Mean pay of $64,620 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $37,300 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $60,950 |
| Top tenth earn over | $81,560 |
| This salary | $60,950 |
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 Massachusetts | $48,426 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $51,153 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$7,900 |
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 | $57,555 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$9,555 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 108 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $60,950 as a midpoint for Massachusetts, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $37,300 and the ninetieth is $81,560 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Massachusetts's $48,426, worked from $60,950. That is on purpose. It lets states be compared with each other, not with each other's family circumstances. Local city taxes are left out. Locally this work ranks 285 of 485.
- Two cautions on $44,740, the adjusted value of that $60,950 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Massachusetts. 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 285 of 485 locally.
- The Massachusetts median of $60,950 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $37,300 to $81,560. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- The Massachusetts take-home of $48,426, on $60,950 for work ranking 285 of 485 locally, models the simplest household deliberately: holding it constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful. It also means the absolute figure overstates liability for most real filers, and municipal income taxes are outside the model entirely. The occupation ranks 285 of 485 in the state.
- This $44,740 adjusted figure, worked from $60,950, 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 285 of 485 in the state. The occupation ranks 285 of 485 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $64,620, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $37,300, the highest tenth $81,560, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
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 $44,740 of national purchasing power.
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 Massachusetts adds its own income tax on top — which is why $48,426 of this wage survives to your account.
Why is this job missing from some states?
Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 50 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.
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 Massachusetts is $64,620. 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 ($37,300) and the ninetieth ($81,560) 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?
Massachusetts's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $44,740 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $48,426 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Massachusetts 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.