Printing Press Operators
What the pay figures show
- For once the obvious answer is right. The District of Columbia pays printing press operators best, at $116,630. It keeps that lead after tax. It keeps it after local prices too — $75,750 in comparable money. Most jobs are not this tidy.
- The nominal leader for printing press operators is also the real leader: the District of Columbia at $116,630, holding through tax and through price deflation to $75,750. Both adjustments leave the ordering at the top intact, which indicates a wage premium large enough to dominate the state's tax burden and price level rather than merely offset them.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$45,780
People doing it
144,260
Highest paid
$116,630
DC
Best off, really
$75,750
DC, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$33,330
Highest tenth
$63,520
Lowest, really
$33,441
AL
States with data
51
National average
$47,360
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
110.8%
DC, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Pay for this job roughly doubles depending on the state. That is a lot. Some of it is prices, because dear places pay more to make up for costing more. Most of it is not. In real money the range is still $33,441 to $75,750.
- About 144,260 Americans work in this job, on a middle wage of $45,780. Big enough that where you live changes the arithmetic.
- Coverage is complete — all 51 jurisdictions publish this, on a middle wage of $45,780. Nothing is missing.
- Interstate variation in printing press operators pay approaches twofold nominally. The standard explanation — that high-wage states are merely high-cost states — is only partly supported here: after tax and price adjustment the range remains $33,441 to $75,750, so the majority of the gap represents a real difference in what the work buys.
- With 144,260 workers, printing press operators sits in the middle of the BLS headcount distribution. The state-level spread described above therefore applies to a meaningful population rather than a niche one.
- Coverage for printing press operators is complete at 51 jurisdictions. No suppression applies, so the highest and lowest figures above are genuinely the national extremes.
Pay band: Printing Press Operators
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $33,330 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $45,780 |
| Top tenth earn over | $63,520 |
| This salary | $45,780 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Printing Press Operators
The national median for this job
$45,780around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $33,330 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $45,780 |
| Top tenth | $63,520 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Printing Press Operators, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Alabama · $36,670 |
|---|---|
| Highest | District of Columbia · $116,630 |
| Spread | $79,960 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $42,550 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $43,787 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| DC | $116,630 | $83,934 | $75,750 |
| AR | $46,470 | $38,258 | $44,225 |
| SD | $44,930 | $38,281 | $43,455 |
| KY | $48,000 | $39,186 | $43,314 |
| OH | $45,760 | $38,406 | $41,831 |
| WI | $47,330 | $38,730 | $41,602 |
| MO | $46,130 | $38,015 | $41,427 |
| IN | $45,230 | $37,218 | $40,373 |
| MN | $48,560 | $39,419 | $40,053 |
| NC | $45,630 | $37,532 | $39,868 |
| TN | $43,160 | $36,859 | $39,841 |
| ME | $47,430 | $38,409 | $39,557 |
| VT | $46,460 | $38,210 | $39,541 |
| PA | $47,010 | $38,509 | $39,497 |
| MA | $53,050 | $42,473 | $39,241 |
| MI | $45,280 | $36,889 | $39,167 |
| NH | $48,410 | $41,077 | $38,993 |
| WA | $49,800 | $42,194 | $38,867 |
| AK | $46,460 | $39,511 | $38,844 |
| CO | $47,860 | $39,238 | $38,703 |
| MT | $42,220 | $34,876 | $38,646 |
| NE | $42,070 | $34,773 | $38,475 |
| WY | $40,760 | $34,931 | $38,450 |
| IA | $40,790 | $34,017 | $38,321 |
| NV | $43,500 | $37,132 | $38,289 |
| WV | $41,200 | $34,203 | $38,100 |
| NJ | $50,430 | $41,462 | $38,079 |
| IL | $46,260 | $37,205 | $37,636 |
| KS | $41,890 | $33,790 | $37,559 |
| TX | $42,550 | $36,369 | $37,426 |
| MD | $47,840 | $38,711 | $37,234 |
| RI | $45,380 | $37,361 | $36,841 |
| ND | $37,850 | $32,592 | $36,798 |
| SC | $40,470 | $34,188 | $36,692 |
| DE | $44,600 | $36,108 | $36,379 |
| MS | $38,400 | $31,590 | $36,189 |
| OR | $48,760 | $37,642 | $35,945 |
| NY | $47,860 | $38,648 | $35,910 |
| LA | $37,650 | $31,689 | $35,869 |
| CT | $45,670 | $37,071 | $35,752 |
| AZ | $42,950 | $36,019 | $35,625 |
| VA | $44,020 | $35,780 | $35,514 |
| GA | $41,520 | $34,068 | $35,231 |
| UT | $41,030 | $33,322 | $35,075 |
| ID | $38,650 | $32,040 | $35,045 |
| NM | $37,110 | $31,369 | $34,706 |
| OK | $36,760 | $30,563 | $34,618 |
| FL | $41,180 | $35,268 | $34,091 |
| CA | $46,110 | $38,249 | $33,975 |
| HI | $45,390 | $36,616 | $33,714 |
| AL | $36,670 | $30,087 | $33,441 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for printing press operators as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $45,780, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for printing press operators. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, the District of Columbia keeps the most at $83,934.
- The price adjustment for printing press operators uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Alabama anchors the bottom at $33,441. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- These are distribution medians for printing press operators, with a national value of $45,780. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
- The household modeled for printing press operators is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis the District of Columbia retains the most, $83,934. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for printing press operators deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.