Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors in Texas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$39,406
after federal, FICA and Texas tax
Tax takes
$6,924
14.9% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$40,552
Texas costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Texas — 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
$46,330
Kept after tax
$39,406
Worth in national money
$40,552
State rank
35
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. Texas pays this job a middle wage of $46,330, 35 of 51 states and about 6.76% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Against other work in Texas, this sits in the middle: 326 of 493 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- No great distortion either way. Texas costs about what the country costs, so from $46,330, take-home of $39,406 is worth roughly $40,552 in national money. The average lands at $44,700, below the middle of the range.
- Texas's $46,330 median for refuse and recyclable material collectors places it 35 of 51 states, about 6.76% below national. Because both the tax and price adjustments tend to favor lower-nominal states, this ranking is the least stable of the three reported here.
- Refuse and recyclable material collectors ranks 326 of 493 occupations in Texas 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.
- Price parity in Texas is near the national base, so for refuse and recyclable material collectors, whose median is $46,330, the adjusted figure of $40,552 differs little from $39,406 retained after tax. The state's position for this occupation is therefore set by wage and tax rather than by living costs. At $44,700 the mean undershoots the median, an inversion of the usual skew.
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: Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $30,830 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $46,330 |
| Top tenth earn over | $59,380 |
| This salary | $46,330 |
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 Texas | $39,406 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Florida | $39,406 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$2,461 |
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
| To match take-home only | $46,330 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$3,168 |
| Prices in Florida | 103 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $46,330 as a midpoint for Texas, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $30,830 and the ninetieth is $59,380 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Texas's $39,406, worked from $46,330. 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 326 of 493.
- Two cautions on $40,552, the adjusted value of that $46,330 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Texas. 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 326 of 493 locally.
- The Texas median of $46,330 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $30,830 to $59,380. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- The Texas take-home of $39,406, on $46,330 for work ranking 326 of 493 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 326 of 493 in the state.
- This $40,552 adjusted figure, worked from $46,330, 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 326 of 493 in the state. The occupation ranks 326 of 493 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 $44,700 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 $30,830 and the top tenth $59,380, so most people doing this work in Texas sit within a fairly tight band.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Texas sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $40,552 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $39,406 of this wage reaches your account, because Texas takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
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 Texas is $44,700. 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 ($30,830 to $59,380) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Texas rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Texas'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 $40,552 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Texas levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $39,406 reflects the federal layer and FICA alone. Federal income tax and FICA are unchanged; states without a wage income tax generally recover revenue through consumption and property bases instead.
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.