School Bus Monitors in Alaska

A protective helmet, radio and safety vest at an emergency response station.

May 2025 wages · tax year 2026

You keep

$29,491

after federal, FICA and Alaska tax

Tax takes

$4,499

13.2% of the whole

Worth, in national money

$28,994

Alaska costs more than average

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

$33,990

Kept after tax

$29,491

Worth in national money

$28,994

State rank

30

of 50 states

What this pays, and what it is worth

  • Middling, nationally. Alaska pays school bus monitors around $33,990 at the midpoint, 30 of 50 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
  • Against 430 occupations Alaska publishes, school bus monitors lands at 421. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
  • Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $33,990, tax leaves $29,491, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $28,994 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $35,250, since top earners drag the number up.
  • For school bus monitors the Alaska median is $33,990, ranking 30 of 50 states reporting. Mid-band nominal positions are the ones most frequently reordered by the adjustments, because no large wage premium exists to absorb a state's tax or price level.
  • Within Alaska, this work ranks 421 of 430 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 Alaska sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for school bus monitors — median $33,990 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $29,491 retained, $28,994 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $35,250 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.

Compare this career across states

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Pay band: School Bus Monitors

The state median for this job

50thpercentile, roughly
Lowest tenth earn under$30,840
Half earn under$33,990
Top tenth earn over$37,720
This salary$33,990

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

Compare with
$0take-home per year in Texas
Take-home in Alaska$29,491
Take-home in Texas$29,491
Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity+$1,355

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

Moving to
$0now · $33,990$32,352
$32,352in Texas, for the same life
To match take-home only$33,990
You could take a cut of−$1,638
Prices in Texas97 vs 102

State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.

Sources and assumptions
  • A median is the middle, not an offer. Half of school bus monitors in Alaska earn under $33,990 and half over. The published range runs $30,840 at the tenth percentile to $37,720 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
  • In Alaska the take-home figure of $29,491, from $33,990, assumes one filer, no dependants, and nothing paid into a pension before tax. Each of those lowers the bill, so treat it as the plain case. City and school-district income taxes are not included either, and in a few states those are real money. It ranks 421 of 430 occupations here.
  • The wage data and the price data come from different years. That is how each is published. The price adjustment behind $28,994 uses one figure for the whole of Alaska. A city and a rural county there can differ by more than two states do. Out of 430 occupations the state publishes, this one sits at 421.
  • Figures are distribution medians for school bus monitors in Alaska, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $30,840 to $37,720; within-state dispersion of that width routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, so tenure, employer and metropolitan area predict an individual's pay better than geography does.
  • Take-home for Alaska is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $29,491 from $33,990. Each omitted item reduces taxable income, so the figure is a lower bound on retained pay for this household shape. Municipal and school-district income taxes are excluded, which understates the burden materially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The occupation ranks 421 of 430 locally.
  • Wage and price series carry different reference periods, each published on its own schedule. The real-terms figure of $28,994, worked from $33,990, deflates by a statewide parity that conceals substantial intra-state variation, concentrated in housing — so it supports comparison between states rather than the pricing of a move to a particular Alaska address, on work sitting at 421 of 430 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 $35,250 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.

How much does pay for this job actually vary?

Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $30,840 at the tenth percentile, $37,720 at the ninetieth.

Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?

The number and the value are different things. Alaska costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $28,994 rather than its face figure.

Is most of this wage taxed away?

Less than people assume. $29,491 of this wage reaches your account, because Alaska takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.

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 50 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 Alaska is $35,250. 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 ($30,840 to $37,720) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Alaska rather than a national figure.

How does the state price level affect real compensation?

Alaska's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $28,994 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.

Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?

Alaska levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $29,491 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.

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 50 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.