Physical Therapists in Delaware
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$75,118
after federal, FICA and Delaware tax
Tax takes
$26,932
26.4% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$75,683
Delaware costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Delaware — 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
$102,050
Kept after tax
$75,118
Worth in national money
$75,683
State rank
16
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- This is a good state for the work. Delaware pays physical therapists a middle wage of $102,050, ranking 16 of 51 states and sitting about 0.69% above the national middle.
- Locally, this pays well. Among 445 occupations Delaware reports, physical therapists comes in at 67 — comfortably in the upper quarter.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $102,050, tax leaves $75,118, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $75,683 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $108,470, since top earners drag the number up.
- Delaware's median for physical therapists is $102,050, about 0.69% above the national figure and 16 of 51 states reporting. Whether that premium reaches the worker depends on the two adjustments below, which is the part a wage table cannot tell you.
- Physical therapists ranks 67 of 445 occupations by median in Delaware, in the top quartile. Within-state position is largely independent of national position, so this holds regardless of how the state compares to others for the same work.
- Because Delaware sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for physical therapists — median $102,050 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $75,118 retained, $75,683 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $108,470 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Physical Therapists
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $79,930 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $102,050 |
| Top tenth earn over | $136,350 |
| This salary | $102,050 |
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 Delaware | $75,118 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $80,622 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$7,283 |
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 | $94,226 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$10,060 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 99 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Delaware earn less than $102,050. The published range is $79,930 up to $136,350, 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 Delaware's $75,118, worked from $102,050. 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 67 of 445.
- Two cautions on $75,683, the adjusted value of that $102,050 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Delaware. 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 67 of 445 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for physical therapists in Delaware the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $79,930 to $136,350. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- The Delaware take-home of $75,118, on $102,050 for work ranking 67 of 445 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 67 of 445 in the state.
- This $75,683 adjusted figure, worked from $102,050, 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 67 of 445 in the state. The occupation ranks 67 of 445 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 $108,470, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $79,930 at the tenth percentile, $136,350 at the ninetieth.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Delaware sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $75,683 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
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 Delaware adds its own income tax on top — which is why $75,118 of this wage survives to your account.
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 Delaware is $108,470. 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 ($79,930 to $136,350) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Delaware rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Delaware'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 $75,683 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 $75,118 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Delaware 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.