Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks in Maine
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$45,717
after federal, FICA and Maine tax
Tax takes
$11,643
20.3% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$47,084
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
$57,360
Kept after tax
$45,717
Worth in national money
$47,084
State rank
22
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Maine pays payroll and timekeeping clerks around $57,360 at the midpoint, 22 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against other work in Maine, this sits in the middle: 263 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 $57,360, tax leaves $45,717, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $47,084 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $59,700, since top earners drag the number up.
- For payroll and timekeeping clerks the Maine median is $57,360, ranking 22 of 51 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.
- Payroll and timekeeping clerks ranks 263 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 payroll and timekeeping clerks — median $57,360 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $45,717 retained, $47,084 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $59,700 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $43,370 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $57,360 |
| Top tenth earn over | $79,040 |
| This salary | $57,360 |
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 | $45,717 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $48,269 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,588 |
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 | $54,184 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,130 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $57,360 as a midpoint for Maine, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $43,370 and the ninetieth is $79,040 — 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 Maine's $45,717, worked from $57,360. 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 263 of 484.
- The wage data and the price data come from different years. That is how each is published. The price adjustment behind $47,084 uses one figure for the whole of Maine. A city and a rural county there can differ by more than two states do. Out of 484 occupations the state publishes, this one sits at 263.
- The Maine median of $57,360 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $43,370 to $79,040. 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 Maine take-home of $45,717, on $57,360 for work ranking 263 of 484 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 263 of 484 in the state.
- Wage and price series carry different reference periods, each published on its own schedule. The real-terms figure of $47,084, worked from $57,360, deflates by a statewide parity that conceals substantial intra-state variation, concentrated in housing — so it supports comparison between states rather than the pricing of a move to a particular Maine address, on work sitting at 263 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 $59,700, dragged up by high earners; the middle figure describes a typical worker better.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $43,370 at the tenth percentile, $79,040 at the ninetieth.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Maine sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $47,084 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Three of them are federal and one is not. After income tax, Social Security, Medicare and Maine's own levy, $45,717 remains.
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 Maine is $59,700. 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 ($43,370 to $79,040) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Maine rather than a national figure.
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 $47,084 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 $45,717 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.
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.