Power Plant Operators in Delaware
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$75,730
after federal, FICA and Delaware tax
Tax takes
$27,280
26.5% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$76,300
Delaware costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Delaware — 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
$103,010
Kept after tax
$75,730
Worth in national money
$76,300
State rank
22
of 49 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Delaware pays power plant operators around $103,010 at the midpoint, 22 of 49 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- This is one of the better-paid jobs in Delaware. It ranks 61 out of 445 occupations the state publishes figures for, which puts it in the top quarter locally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $103,010, tax leaves $75,730, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $76,300 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $110,380, since top earners drag the number up.
- For power plant operators the Delaware median is $103,010, ranking 22 of 49 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.
- Within Delaware, power plant operators ranks 61 of 445 occupations by median pay, placing it in the top quartile of the local distribution. This is the comparison a resident actually makes — against neighbors rather than against the same job elsewhere.
- Because Delaware sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for power plant operators — median $103,010 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $75,730 retained, $76,300 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $110,380 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Power Plant Operators
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $85,750 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $103,010 |
| Top tenth earn over | $128,330 |
| This salary | $103,010 |
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 Delaware | $75,730 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $81,298 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$7,361 |
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 | $95,096 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$10,168 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 99 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Delaware earn less than $103,010. The published range is $85,750 up to $128,330, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Delaware's $75,730, worked from $103,010. 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 61 of 445.
- Two cautions on $76,300, the adjusted value of that $103,010 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Delaware. 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 61 of 445 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for power plant operators in Delaware the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $85,750 to $128,330. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- The Delaware take-home of $75,730, on $103,010 for work ranking 61 of 445 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 61 of 445 in the state.
- This $76,300 adjusted figure, worked from $103,010, 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 61 of 445 in the state. The occupation ranks 61 of 445 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 $110,380 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 $85,750 and the top tenth $128,330, so most people doing this work in Delaware sit within a fairly tight band.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Delaware sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $76,300 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
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 Delaware's own levy, $75,730 remains.
Why is this job missing from some states?
Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 49 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.
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 Delaware is $110,380. 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 ($85,750 to $128,330) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Delaware rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Delaware'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 $76,300 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 $75,730 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Delaware 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.
Why does this occupation lack published estimates in every state?
BLS suppresses estimates failing disclosure or reliability criteria. This occupation has published state-level estimates in 49 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.