Postal Service Mail Carriers in Idaho
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$46,427
after federal, FICA and Idaho tax
Tax takes
$11,393
19.7% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$50,782
Idaho costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Idaho — 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
$57,820
Kept after tax
$46,427
Worth in national money
$50,782
State rank
46
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. Idaho pays postal service mail carriers a middle wage of $57,820, 46 of 51 states and about 4.51% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Against other work in Idaho, this sits in the middle: 227 of 476 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cheaper living works in this state's favor. From $57,820 you keep $46,427 after tax, and local prices stretch that to the equivalent of $50,782 at national prices. Averages run higher here, $60,220, since top earners drag the number up.
- Idaho's $57,820 median for postal service mail carriers places it 46 of 51 states, about 4.51% 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.
- Postal service mail carriers ranks 227 of 476 occupations in Idaho 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.
- Retained pay in Idaho is $46,427 after the full tax stack, from $57,820. Because the state's price level runs below the national average, the price-adjusted equivalent is $50,782 — a real-terms figure describing purchasing power rather than compensation, and not a number that appears on any pay stub. Mean pay of $60,220 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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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 | $57,820 |
| Top tenth earn over | $81,040 |
| This salary | $57,820 |
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 Idaho | $46,427 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $48,638 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$729 |
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
| To match take-home only | $55,068 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$882 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 91 |
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 Idaho earn under $57,820 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.
- That $46,427 take-home in Idaho comes from $57,820. It is the no-frills case: single filer, standard deduction, nothing set aside before tax. Real circumstances almost always reduce the tax. City and school-district taxes are not counted at all. Locally the work ranks 227 of 476.
- Two cautions on $50,782, the adjusted value of that $57,820 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Idaho. 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 227 of 476 locally.
- Figures are distribution medians for postal service mail carriers in Idaho, 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.
- Retained pay of $46,427, from $57,820, assumes a single Idaho filer with the standard deduction and no elective deferrals. Pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions, dependants and itemized deductions all reduce it further; local income taxes, excluded here, would increase it in the states that levy them. This occupation ranks 227 of 476 locally, and the state ranks 46 of 51 for it.
- This $50,782 adjusted figure, worked from $57,820, 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 227 of 476 in the state. The occupation ranks 227 of 476 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 $60,220 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
The range here is narrow. From $42,390 at the bottom tenth to $81,040 at the top, pay for this work clusters rather than spreads.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Idaho sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $50,782 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 Idaho adds its own income tax on top — which is why $46,427 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 Idaho is $60,220. 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 Idaho rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Idaho'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 $50,782 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 $46,427 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Idaho 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.