Phlebotomists
What the pay figures show
- Two answers for phlebotomists. Best paid: California, at $56,040. Tax does not change that. Best off: North Dakota, at $45,488 once local prices count. Tax was not what separated them. Rent was.
- California's $56,040 median for phlebotomists survives the tax adjustment intact, so state income tax is not a differentiator in this occupation's geography. It does not survive price deflation: North Dakota takes the top position at $45,488. Housing is where regional price variation concentrates, which is why the reordering appears at this step and not the previous one.
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
$45,230
People doing it
143,540
Highest paid
$56,040
CA
Best off, really
$45,488
ND, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$35,780
Highest tenth
$58,780
Lowest, really
$33,353
FL
States with data
51
National average
$45,520
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.57%
ND, 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 $33,353 and $45,488. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- 143,540 people do this job across the country, and the middle one earns $45,230. Common work, though not one of the giants.
- Every state reports this one. All 51 jurisdictions publish a figure, and the middle wage is $45,230, so the comparison above leaves nobody out.
- Interstate variation for phlebotomists is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $33,353 to $45,488. 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.
- National employment in phlebotomists is 143,540 — a substantial occupation, though an order of magnitude below the largest. Regional differentials here move real aggregate sums without dominating any single state's wage bill.
- All 51 jurisdictions publish an occupational median for phlebotomists, so the spread described above is a complete national range rather than a range across a reported subset.
Pay band: Phlebotomists
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $35,780 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $45,230 |
| Top tenth earn over | $58,780 |
| This salary | $45,230 |
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 Phlebotomists
The national median for this job
$45,230around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $35,780 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $45,230 |
| Top tenth | $58,780 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Phlebotomists, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Louisiana · $36,120 |
|---|---|
| Highest | California · $56,040 |
| Spread | $19,920 |
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 | $40,450 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $41,626 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ND | $47,430 | $40,290 | $45,488 |
| MT | $45,470 | $37,335 | $41,371 |
| WI | $46,470 | $38,081 | $40,905 |
| CA | $56,040 | $45,653 | $40,551 |
| NV | $45,760 | $38,948 | $40,161 |
| NM | $42,910 | $35,780 | $39,586 |
| NH | $48,660 | $41,278 | $39,184 |
| VT | $46,000 | $37,856 | $39,174 |
| DE | $48,110 | $38,733 | $39,025 |
| MO | $43,120 | $35,738 | $38,946 |
| ID | $43,400 | $35,605 | $38,944 |
| KY | $42,480 | $34,943 | $38,625 |
| GA | $45,840 | $37,324 | $38,598 |
| SD | $39,560 | $33,966 | $38,557 |
| AK | $45,900 | $39,061 | $38,402 |
| ME | $45,640 | $37,091 | $38,200 |
| CO | $47,180 | $38,722 | $38,194 |
| WA | $48,880 | $41,455 | $38,186 |
| AZ | $46,260 | $38,596 | $38,174 |
| MN | $46,000 | $37,499 | $38,102 |
| NC | $43,330 | $35,776 | $38,003 |
| DC | $51,980 | $41,993 | $37,899 |
| NY | $50,530 | $40,649 | $37,769 |
| RI | $46,380 | $38,127 | $37,596 |
| IL | $46,010 | $37,016 | $37,445 |
| MA | $50,170 | $40,303 | $37,236 |
| VA | $46,340 | $37,510 | $37,231 |
| PA | $43,910 | $36,114 | $37,040 |
| NJ | $48,650 | $40,130 | $36,856 |
| OH | $39,770 | $33,758 | $36,768 |
| OK | $39,030 | $32,285 | $36,568 |
| WV | $39,250 | $32,698 | $36,423 |
| NE | $39,540 | $32,855 | $36,354 |
| AR | $37,450 | $31,344 | $36,232 |
| OR | $49,160 | $37,929 | $36,219 |
| WY | $38,180 | $32,858 | $36,168 |
| IA | $38,240 | $32,065 | $36,122 |
| CT | $45,820 | $37,184 | $35,862 |
| TN | $38,550 | $33,155 | $35,837 |
| TX | $40,450 | $34,682 | $35,690 |
| SC | $39,010 | $33,047 | $35,467 |
| IN | $39,250 | $32,589 | $35,352 |
| HI | $47,750 | $38,343 | $35,303 |
| KS | $39,100 | $31,704 | $35,240 |
| MI | $39,860 | $32,764 | $34,787 |
| UT | $40,630 | $33,018 | $34,755 |
| LA | $36,120 | $30,505 | $34,529 |
| MS | $36,290 | $29,979 | $34,344 |
| MD | $43,480 | $35,415 | $34,064 |
| AL | $37,220 | $30,505 | $33,905 |
| FL | $40,230 | $34,505 | $33,353 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for phlebotomists, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $45,230 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- The take-home numbers here use the simplest possible household: one filer for phlebotomists, no children, no pension contributions, standard deduction. Real life usually reduces the tax bill below this. City and school-district income taxes are left out, and in Ohio or Pennsylvania that is a real omission. The best after-tax state here is California, at $45,653.
- Levelling out prices for phlebotomists is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — Florida sits at the bottom on $33,353.
- All wage figures for phlebotomists are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $45,230. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- Retained-pay figures for phlebotomists model a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax deferrals — deliberately the simplest household, so the comparison across states isolates geography rather than personal circumstances. Local income taxes are outside the model; Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland residents should expect a meaningfully lower figure than $45,653, which leads in California.
- The price deflation applied to phlebotomists uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is Florida at $33,353. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Florida anchors the bottom at $33,353 — and the two source series are dated independently.