Postal Service Mail Carriers in Colorado
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$48,367
after federal, FICA and Colorado tax
Tax takes
$11,513
19.2% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$47,708
Colorado costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Colorado — 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
$59,880
Kept after tax
$48,367
Worth in national money
$47,708
State rank
22
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Colorado pays postal service mail carriers around $59,880 at the midpoint, 22 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against other work in Colorado, this sits in the middle: 277 of 491 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $59,880, tax leaves $48,367, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $47,708 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $62,480, since top earners drag the number up.
- For postal service mail carriers the Colorado median is $59,880, 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.
- Postal service mail carriers ranks 277 of 491 occupations in Colorado 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 Colorado sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for postal service mail carriers — median $59,880 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $48,367 retained, $47,708 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $62,480 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Postal Service Mail Carriers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $42,390 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $59,880 |
| Top tenth earn over | $81,040 |
| This salary | $59,880 |
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 Colorado | $48,367 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $50,294 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$4,048 |
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 | $57,483 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$4,895 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle, not an offer. Half of postal service mail carriers in Colorado earn under $59,880 and half over. The published range runs $42,390 at the tenth percentile to $81,040 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Colorado's $48,367, worked from $59,880. 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 277 of 491.
- One number stands for prices across all of Colorado, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $47,708, the adjusted value of that $59,880 median, as a way to compare states fairly, not as a quote for any particular place. The two datasets are also from different years. This job sits at 277 of 491 in the state.
- Figures are distribution medians for postal service mail carriers in Colorado, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $42,390 to $81,040; within-state dispersion of that width routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, so tenure, employer and metropolitan area predict an individual's pay better than geography does.
- The Colorado take-home of $48,367, on $59,880 for work ranking 277 of 491 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 277 of 491 in the state.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Colorado, so $47,708 — the adjusted value of that $59,880 median — establishes comparability between states rather than accuracy within one. The wage and parity series are dated independently, each following its own publication cycle, and neither is projected forward. This occupation sits at 277 of 491 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 $62,480 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 — $42,390 at the tenth percentile, $81,040 at the ninetieth.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
The number and the value are different things. Colorado costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $47,708 rather than its face figure.
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 Colorado's own levy, $48,367 remains.
Can I compare this job across every state?
Yes for this one. Pay is published in all 51 jurisdictions, so a state-to-state comparison here rests on the same survey everywhere rather than on a patchwork.
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 Colorado is $62,480. 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 ($42,390 to $81,040) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Colorado rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Colorado's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $47,708 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 $48,367 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Colorado 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.