Sawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Wood in Virginia
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$29,640
after federal, FICA and Virginia tax
Tax takes
$6,150
17.2% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$29,420
Virginia costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Virginia — 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
$35,790
Kept after tax
$29,640
Worth in national money
$29,420
State rank
44
of 46 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for this job is on the low side in Virginia. The middle earner gets $35,790. That is 44 of 46 states, and about 16.32% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against 489 occupations Virginia publishes, this job lands at 457. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $35,790, tax leaves $29,640, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $29,420 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $37,680, since top earners drag the number up.
- For sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood, Virginia sits in the lower band at $35,790, ranking 44 of 46 and trailing the national median by about 16.32%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Within Virginia, this work ranks 457 of 489 occupations by median pay, in the bottom quartile. The within-state position is the more salient one for anyone weighing this job against alternatives available to them locally.
- Because Virginia sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood — median $35,790 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $29,640 retained, $29,420 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $37,680 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Sawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Wood
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $30,480 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $35,790 |
| Top tenth earn over | $47,780 |
| This salary | $35,790 |
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 Virginia | $29,640 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $30,937 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,417 |
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 | $34,175 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,923 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $35,790 as a midpoint for Virginia, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $30,480 and the ninetieth is $47,780 — 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 Virginia's $29,640, worked from $35,790. 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 457 of 489.
- One number stands for prices across all of Virginia, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $29,420, the adjusted value of that $35,790 median, as a way to compare states fairly, not as a quote for any particular place. The two datasets are also from different years. This job sits at 457 of 489 in the state.
- The Virginia median of $35,790 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $30,480 to $47,780. 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 Virginia take-home of $29,640, on $35,790 for work ranking 457 of 489 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 457 of 489 in the state.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Virginia, so $29,420 — the adjusted value of that $35,790 median — establishes comparability between states rather than accuracy within one. The wage and parity series are dated independently, each following its own publication cycle, and neither is projected forward. This occupation sits at 457 of 489 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $37,680, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
The range here is narrow. From $30,480 at the bottom tenth to $47,780 at the top, pay for this work clusters rather than spreads.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
A larger wage in a dearer place is not automatically more. Adjusted for local prices, this pay behaves like $29,420 of national purchasing power.
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 Virginia's own levy, $29,640 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 46 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 Virginia is $37,680. 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 ($30,480 to $47,780) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Virginia rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Virginia's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $29,420 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $29,640 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Virginia 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 46 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.