Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators in Nebraska

A hard hat, safety glasses and tool belt beside timber house framing.

May 2025 wages · tax year 2026

You keep

$37,570

after federal, FICA and Nebraska tax

Tax takes

$8,190

17.9% of the whole

Worth, in national money

$41,570

Nebraska costs less than average

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

$45,760

Kept after tax

$37,570

Worth in national money

$41,570

State rank

45

of 50 states

What this pays, and what it is worth

  • The nominal figure here is modest. Nebraska pays this job a middle wage of $45,760, 45 of 50 states and about 14.21% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
  • Against other work in Nebraska, this sits in the middle: 364 of 488 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
  • Nebraska is cheaper than average, and that shows up here. From $45,760 the take-home is $37,570; adjusted for what things actually cost, it goes as far as $41,570 would nationally. The average comes to $49,810, above the middle, thanks to the top of the range.
  • Nebraska's $45,760 median for paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators places it 45 of 50 states, about 14.21% below national. Because both the tax and price adjustments tend to favor lower-nominal states, this ranking is the least stable of the three reported here.
  • Paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators ranks 364 of 488 occupations in Nebraska 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.
  • Post-tax income for paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators in Nebraska, on $45,760, is $37,570 — equivalent to $41,570 once regional price parity is applied. ⚠️ The adjustment uses a statewide index that describes no particular address; within-state price variation, concentrated in housing, routinely exceeds the difference between two states. At $49,810 the mean overshoots the median — the usual right-skewed shape.

Compare this career across states

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Pay band: Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators

The state median for this job

50thpercentile, roughly
Lowest tenth earn under$39,340
Half earn under$45,760
Top tenth earn over$63,260
This salary$45,760

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

Compare with
+$1,379take-home per year in Texas
Take-home in Nebraska$37,570
Take-home in Texas$38,948
Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity−$1,490

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

Moving to
$0$47,562
$47,562in Texas, for the same life
To match take-home only$44,044
Raise you would need+$1,802
Prices in Texas97 vs 90

State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.

Sources and assumptions
  • Half the people doing this work in Nebraska earn less than $45,760. The published range is $39,340 up to $63,260, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
  • One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Nebraska's $37,570, worked from $45,760. 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 364 of 488.
  • Two cautions on $41,570, the adjusted value of that $45,760 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Nebraska. 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 364 of 488 locally.
  • Reported values are medians; for paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators in Nebraska the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $39,340 to $63,260. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
  • The Nebraska take-home of $37,570, on $45,760 for work ranking 364 of 488 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 364 of 488 in the state.
  • This $41,570 adjusted figure, worked from $45,760, 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 364 of 488 in the state. The occupation ranks 364 of 488 locally.

Questions people ask

Is this the average pay for the job?

Half earn more than this and half earn less. The average sits at $49,810 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.

How much does pay for this job actually vary?

Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $39,340 at the tenth percentile, $63,260 at the ninetieth.

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 $41,570.

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 Nebraska adds its own income tax on top — which is why $37,570 of this wage survives to your account.

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 Nebraska is $49,810. 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 is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?

The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($39,340 to $63,260) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Nebraska rather than a national figure.

What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?

Nebraska'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 $41,570 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 $37,570 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Nebraska 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.