Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products
What the pay figures show
- Rhode Island pays this job the most on paper: $82,420. Two things happen before that money is yours. State tax takes a share, which puts Washington in front. Then local prices decide what is left, and South Dakota wins at $71,681. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products, Rhode Island's $82,420 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote Washington; regional price parity then promotes South Dakota, whose $71,681 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
$72,080
People doing it
1,238,190
Highest paid
$82,420
RI
Best off, really
$71,681
SD, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$39,090
Highest tenth
$137,550
Lowest, really
$42,863
HI
States with data
51
National average
$82,530
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.09%
SD, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- The state you work in changes what this job pays, but less than you would expect. Level out tax and prices and the whole country sits between $42,863 and $71,681. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- Roughly 1,238,190 Americans do this job. Hold that scale in mind. A few thousand dollars here is a few thousand dollars across millions of households.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $72,080 in the middle.
- Interstate variation for sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $42,863 to $71,681. A differential of this magnitude is real but rarely decisive on its own, which is worth stating plainly against wage tables that present nominal gaps without either adjustment.
- With 1,238,190 workers nationally, sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products is one of the highest-headcount occupations BLS publishes. Aggregate effects of the differentials described above are correspondingly large, even where the per-worker figures appear modest.
- 51 jurisdictions report sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $39,090 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $72,080 |
| Top tenth earn over | $137,550 |
| This salary | $72,080 |
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 Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products
The national median for this job
$72,080around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $39,090 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $72,080 |
| Top tenth | $137,550 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Arkansas · $55,120 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Rhode Island · $82,420 |
| Spread | $27,300 |
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 | $65,970 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $67,888 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SD | $77,210 | $63,147 | $71,681 |
| ND | $74,250 | $60,876 | $68,731 |
| WY | $72,530 | $59,855 | $65,885 |
| OH | $73,960 | $59,543 | $64,854 |
| RI | $82,420 | $64,142 | $63,249 |
| VT | $76,840 | $59,926 | $62,013 |
| IN | $71,330 | $56,936 | $61,763 |
| CO | $79,250 | $61,804 | $60,961 |
| MI | $72,980 | $57,321 | $60,860 |
| IA | $66,760 | $53,871 | $60,688 |
| MN | $76,750 | $59,128 | $60,079 |
| NC | $70,990 | $56,448 | $59,962 |
| WA | $79,830 | $64,990 | $59,865 |
| KS | $68,960 | $53,784 | $59,783 |
| NV | $68,150 | $56,774 | $58,541 |
| LA | $63,290 | $51,521 | $58,318 |
| IL | $73,510 | $57,050 | $57,711 |
| AZ | $72,390 | $58,349 | $57,711 |
| KY | $64,280 | $51,697 | $57,144 |
| WV | $63,560 | $51,229 | $57,065 |
| NH | $72,790 | $60,038 | $56,992 |
| NE | $64,030 | $51,418 | $56,894 |
| TX | $65,970 | $55,187 | $56,791 |
| NY | $79,590 | $61,121 | $56,790 |
| NJ | $79,410 | $61,826 | $56,782 |
| MA | $79,810 | $61,306 | $56,640 |
| AL | $64,140 | $50,950 | $56,630 |
| WI | $65,930 | $52,695 | $56,603 |
| ID | $64,840 | $51,696 | $56,544 |
| CT | $75,570 | $58,587 | $56,503 |
| OK | $62,160 | $49,829 | $56,440 |
| TN | $61,630 | $51,700 | $55,883 |
| SC | $64,250 | $51,861 | $55,658 |
| DC | $80,010 | $61,285 | $55,309 |
| NM | $61,320 | $49,734 | $55,024 |
| MD | $73,080 | $57,134 | $54,955 |
| MT | $61,670 | $49,590 | $54,951 |
| PA | $66,130 | $53,285 | $54,652 |
| MS | $59,320 | $47,563 | $54,487 |
| MO | $61,940 | $49,975 | $54,461 |
| CA | $76,490 | $59,594 | $52,934 |
| GA | $63,860 | $50,904 | $52,641 |
| OR | $74,180 | $55,075 | $52,592 |
| ME | $63,960 | $50,575 | $52,087 |
| AR | $55,120 | $44,888 | $51,889 |
| UT | $61,980 | $49,223 | $51,812 |
| FL | $62,490 | $52,391 | $50,643 |
| VA | $63,400 | $50,237 | $49,864 |
| DE | $62,280 | $49,332 | $49,704 |
| AK | $56,830 | $47,843 | $47,036 |
| HI | $59,010 | $46,553 | $42,863 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for this job as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $72,080, 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.
- The take-home numbers here use the simplest possible household: one filer for this job, no children, no pension contributions, standard deduction. Real life usually reduces the tax bill below this. City and school-district income taxes are left out, and in Ohio or Pennsylvania that is a real omission. The best after-tax state here is Washington, at $64,990.
- Levelling out prices for this job is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — Hawaii sits at the bottom on $42,863.
- These are distribution medians for sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products, with a national value of $72,080. 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.
- Retained-pay figures for sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products model a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax deferrals — deliberately the simplest household, so the comparison across states isolates geography rather than personal circumstances. Local income taxes are outside the model; Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland residents should expect a meaningfully lower figure than $64,990, which leads in Washington.
- The price deflation applied to sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is Hawaii at $42,863. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Hawaii anchors the bottom at $42,863 — and the two source series are dated independently.