Postal Service Mail Sorters, Processors, and Processing Machine Operators in Maine
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$47,285
after federal, FICA and Maine tax
Tax takes
$12,205
20.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$48,698
Maine costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Maine — 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
$59,490
Kept after tax
$47,285
Worth in national money
$48,698
State rank
10
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for this job is strong here. Maine's middle earner gets $59,490, putting the state 10 of 51 — about 1.74% ahead of the national figure.
- Against other work in Maine, this sits in the middle: 248 of 484 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $59,490, tax leaves $47,285, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $48,698 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $61,420, since top earners drag the number up.
- For postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators, Maine sits in the upper band nationally: a median of $59,490, ranking 10 of 51 and running about 1.74% above the national midpoint. Nominal advantage of this size is usually, though not always, large enough to survive the state's own tax and price levels.
- Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators ranks 248 of 484 occupations in Maine 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 Maine sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators — median $59,490 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $47,285 retained, $48,698 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $61,420 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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 Sorters, Processors, and Processing Machine Operators
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $47,440 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $59,490 |
| Top tenth earn over | $75,280 |
| This salary | $59,490 |
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 Maine | $47,285 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $49,980 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,735 |
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 | $56,135 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,307 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 97 |
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 sorters, processors, and processing machine operators in Maine earn under $59,490 and half over. The published range runs $47,440 at the tenth percentile to $75,280 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- That $47,285 take-home in Maine comes from $59,490. 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 248 of 484.
- Two cautions on $48,698, the adjusted value of that $59,490 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Maine. 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 248 of 484 locally.
- Figures are distribution medians for postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators in Maine, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $47,440 to $75,280; 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 $47,285, from $59,490, assumes a single Maine 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 248 of 484 locally, and the state ranks 10 of 51 for it.
- This $48,698 adjusted figure, worked from $59,490, 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 248 of 484 in the state. The occupation ranks 248 of 484 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 $61,420, 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 — $47,440 at the tenth percentile, $75,280 at the ninetieth.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Maine sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $48,698 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Four deductions, stacked. The federal layer and the two payroll taxes apply wherever you work; Maine then takes its own share, leaving $47,285.
Can I compare this job across every state?
All 51 jurisdictions report this work, which makes the ranking a like-for-like one.
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 Maine is $61,420. 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 ($47,440 to $75,280) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Maine rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Maine'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 $48,698 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 $47,285 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Maine 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.