Postal Service Mail Carriers in Missouri

A person arriving at a home office with a bag beside a laptop and navy coffee cup.

May 2025 wages · tax year 2026

You keep

$48,417

after federal, FICA and Missouri tax

Tax takes

$11,463

19.1% of the whole

Worth, in national money

$52,763

Missouri costs less than average

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

$48,417

Worth in national money

$52,763

State rank

28

of 51 states

What this pays, and what it is worth

  • Missouri sits in the middle of the pack for postal service mail carriers. The median is $59,880, ranking 28 of 51 states with figures. Close enough to the national middle that where you live matters more than the headline suggests.
  • Ordinary, locally speaking. Postal service mail carriers ranks 216 among 488 occupations Missouri publishes pay for.
  • Here is where Missouri does better than its wage suggests. From a median of $59,880 you keep $48,417, and because things cost less here than the national average, that behaves like $52,763 would elsewhere. The average is higher, $62,220, because the best-paid pull it up.
  • Missouri occupies the middle band for postal service mail carriers: a median of $59,880, ranking 28 of 51. Where nominal pay is close to the national figure, the tax and price adjustments below carry proportionally more weight in determining the real outcome.
  • Position 216 of 488 in Missouri places postal service mail carriers in the middle of the state's wage distribution. Because within-state and cross-state rankings measure different things, this figure and the national one above should be read together rather than as a single verdict.
  • After federal, FICA and Missouri income tax, retained pay for postal service mail carriers on $59,880 is $48,417. Deflating by the state's price level — below the national average — gives $52,763 in national-average terms. ⚠️ That figure is purchasing power, not a wage, and nobody is paid it; it is what the take-home buys. The mean of $62,220 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.

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 band: Postal Service Mail Carriers

The state median for this job

50thpercentile, roughly
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

Compare with
+$1,877take-home per year in Texas
Take-home in Missouri$48,417
Take-home in Texas$50,294
Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity−$1,008

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

Moving to
$0$61,098
$61,098in Texas, for the same life
To match take-home only$57,544
Raise you would need+$1,218
Prices in Texas97 vs 92

State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.

Sources and assumptions
  • Half the people doing this work in Missouri earn less than $59,880. The published range is $42,390 up to $81,040, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
  • In Missouri the take-home figure of $48,417, from $59,880, assumes one filer, no dependants, and nothing paid into a pension before tax. Each of those lowers the bill, so treat it as the plain case. City and school-district income taxes are not included either, and in a few states those are real money. It ranks 216 of 488 occupations here.
  • Two cautions on $52,763, the adjusted value of that $59,880 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Missouri. 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 216 of 488 locally.
  • Reported values are medians; for postal service mail carriers in Missouri the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $42,390 to $81,040. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
  • Take-home for Missouri is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $48,417 from $59,880. Each omitted item reduces taxable income, so the figure is a lower bound on retained pay for this household shape. Municipal and school-district income taxes are excluded, which understates the burden materially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The occupation ranks 216 of 488 locally.
  • This $52,763 adjusted figure, worked from $59,880, 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 216 of 488 in the state. The occupation ranks 216 of 488 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 $62,220, 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?

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?

A smaller wage in a cheaper place is not automatically less. Adjusted for local prices, this is worth $52,763.

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 Missouri's own levy, $48,417 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 Missouri is $62,220. 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 Missouri rather than a national figure.

What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?

Missouri'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 $52,763 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 $48,417 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Missouri 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.