Postal Service Mail Carriers in Pennsylvania
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$48,455
after federal, FICA and Pennsylvania tax
Tax takes
$11,425
19.1% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$49,698
Pennsylvania costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Pennsylvania — 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
$48,455
Worth in national money
$49,698
State rank
32
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Pennsylvania pays postal service mail carriers around $59,880 at the midpoint, 32 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Ordinary, locally speaking. Postal service mail carriers ranks 237 among 492 occupations Pennsylvania publishes pay for.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $59,880, tax leaves $48,455, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $49,698 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $62,460, since top earners drag the number up.
- For postal service mail carriers the Pennsylvania median is $59,880, ranking 32 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.
- Position 237 of 492 in Pennsylvania 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.
- Because Pennsylvania 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: $48,455 retained, $49,698 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $62,460 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 Pennsylvania | $48,455 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $50,294 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,058 |
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 | $57,592 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,489 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 98 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $59,880 as a midpoint for Pennsylvania, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $42,390 and the ninetieth is $81,040 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- In Pennsylvania the take-home figure of $48,455, 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 237 of 492 occupations here.
- Two cautions on $49,698, the adjusted value of that $59,880 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Pennsylvania. 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 237 of 492 locally.
- The Pennsylvania median of $59,880 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $42,390 to $81,040. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- Take-home for Pennsylvania is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $48,455 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 237 of 492 locally.
- This $49,698 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 237 of 492 in the state. The occupation ranks 237 of 492 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 $62,460 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $42,390 and the top tenth $81,040, so most people doing this work in Pennsylvania sit within a fairly tight band.
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 $49,698.
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 Pennsylvania adds its own income tax on top — which is why $48,455 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 Pennsylvania is $62,460. 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 Pennsylvania rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Pennsylvania'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 $49,698 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 $48,455 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Pennsylvania 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.