Roofers
What the pay figures show
- Illinois pays roofers the most on paper: $77,900. Two things happen before that money is yours. State tax takes a share, which puts New Jersey in front. Then local prices decide what is left, and Illinois wins at $60,615. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For roofers, Illinois's $77,900 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote New Jersey; regional price parity then promotes Illinois, whose $60,615 real figure is the highest purchasing power available in this occupation. Nominal wage comparisons across states are therefore a poor guide to relocation, and the error compounds rather than cancels.
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 by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$55,440
People doing it
135,490
Highest paid
$77,900
IL
Best off, really
$60,615
IL, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$37,460
Highest tenth
$81,720
Lowest, really
$38,772
VA
States with data
51
National average
$58,140
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
98.86%
IL, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Nationally, this job pays within a fairly narrow band. Adjust for tax and for local prices and the band tightens again, to between $38,772 and $60,615. Geography is not the main lever on pay here.
- Roughly 135,490 people hold this job nationally, earning $55,440 in the middle. A solid, ordinary-sized job.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $55,440 in the middle.
- Wages for roofers cluster comparatively tightly across states, and the clustering strengthens after tax and price deflation — a real range of $38,772 to $60,615. Occupation-level factors such as specialisation and employer type therefore explain more of an individual's pay here than location does.
- 135,490 are employed nationally in roofers, placing it well inside the reported range without approaching the highest-headcount occupations.
- 51 jurisdictions report roofers, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: Roofers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $37,460 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $55,440 |
| Top tenth earn over | $81,720 |
| This salary | $55,440 |
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 Roofers
The national median for this job
$55,440around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $37,460 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $55,440 |
| Top tenth | $81,720 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Roofers, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Oklahoma · $43,680 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Illinois · $77,900 |
| Spread | $34,220 |
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 | $46,030 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $47,368 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| IL | $77,900 | $59,921 | $60,615 |
| MN | $74,490 | $57,692 | $58,620 |
| ND | $59,740 | $50,181 | $56,656 |
| NJ | $76,600 | $60,029 | $55,131 |
| AK | $66,750 | $55,789 | $54,848 |
| MT | $59,030 | $47,593 | $52,738 |
| MA | $72,750 | $56,692 | $52,377 |
| WI | $59,370 | $47,811 | $51,356 |
| IN | $57,980 | $47,086 | $51,078 |
| ID | $57,790 | $46,405 | $50,757 |
| MI | $59,530 | $47,733 | $50,681 |
| VT | $59,040 | $47,832 | $49,498 |
| RI | $61,630 | $49,809 | $49,115 |
| NY | $66,020 | $52,259 | $48,556 |
| NH | $59,830 | $50,253 | $47,704 |
| CT | $62,070 | $49,389 | $47,632 |
| DE | $59,440 | $47,208 | $47,563 |
| WA | $60,640 | $50,904 | $46,890 |
| WV | $51,170 | $41,802 | $46,564 |
| PA | $55,710 | $45,233 | $46,392 |
| MD | $60,090 | $47,972 | $46,142 |
| SD | $47,710 | $40,515 | $45,990 |
| LA | $48,760 | $40,282 | $45,596 |
| CA | $63,600 | $51,267 | $45,538 |
| AR | $47,470 | $39,024 | $45,111 |
| IA | $48,660 | $40,041 | $45,108 |
| OH | $49,390 | $41,223 | $44,899 |
| NV | $51,090 | $43,231 | $44,577 |
| DC | $61,750 | $49,229 | $44,429 |
| MO | $48,570 | $39,861 | $43,439 |
| HI | $59,580 | $46,968 | $43,245 |
| OR | $58,970 | $44,953 | $42,926 |
| WY | $45,650 | $38,860 | $42,774 |
| NC | $49,010 | $40,113 | $42,610 |
| KY | $46,940 | $38,371 | $42,414 |
| NE | $46,460 | $38,100 | $42,157 |
| TN | $45,690 | $38,892 | $42,038 |
| KS | $47,190 | $37,753 | $41,964 |
| MS | $44,940 | $36,584 | $41,910 |
| CO | $51,750 | $42,193 | $41,617 |
| NM | $45,300 | $37,598 | $41,597 |
| ME | $50,120 | $40,388 | $41,596 |
| UT | $48,680 | $39,128 | $41,187 |
| AL | $45,670 | $36,922 | $41,039 |
| SC | $45,760 | $38,230 | $41,029 |
| OK | $43,680 | $35,812 | $40,563 |
| TX | $46,030 | $39,165 | $40,304 |
| GA | $46,940 | $38,153 | $39,455 |
| FL | $47,590 | $40,419 | $39,070 |
| AZ | $47,340 | $39,437 | $39,006 |
| VA | $48,420 | $39,062 | $38,772 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for roofers, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $55,440 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for roofers. 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, New Jersey keeps the most at $60,029.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for roofers. Inside any state, a big city costs far more than a small town, so this is a fair way to compare states with each other and a poor way to price a specific move. The wage figures and the price figures are also from different years. At the bottom of the range sits Virginia, on $38,772.
- All wage figures for roofers are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $55,440. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- The household modeled for roofers 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 New Jersey retains the most, $60,029. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for roofers rest on statewide regional price parities, which average over intra-state variation that is itself larger than much of the interstate variation. They support comparison between states and not the pricing of an individual relocation; Virginia anchors the distribution at $38,772. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.