Sheet Metal Workers in Colorado
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$46,848
after federal, FICA and Colorado tax
Tax takes
$11,032
19.1% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$46,210
Colorado costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Colorado — 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
$57,880
Kept after tax
$46,848
Worth in national money
$46,210
State rank
35
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. Colorado pays sheet metal workers a middle wage of $57,880, 35 of 50 states and about 6.34% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Against other work in Colorado, this sits in the middle: 295 of 491 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Prices here sit close to the national average, so the adjustment changes little. From $57,880 the take-home is $46,848, which is worth about $46,210 in comparable money. Tax does most of the work here, not cost of living. The average is higher, $60,390, because the best-paid pull it up.
- Colorado's $57,880 median for sheet metal workers places it 35 of 50 states, about 6.34% 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.
- Sheet metal workers ranks 295 of 491 occupations in Colorado 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.
- Colorado's price level is near the national average, so price deflation is close to neutral for sheet metal workers on its $57,880 median: $46,848 retained after tax becomes $46,210 in national-average terms. Where the price adjustment is small, the tax stack is the dominant determinant of the real outcome. The mean of $60,390 sits above the median, the right skew typical of wage data.
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: Sheet Metal Workers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $43,780 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $57,880 |
| Top tenth earn over | $83,550 |
| This salary | $57,880 |
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 Colorado | $46,848 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $48,687 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$3,892 |
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 | $55,592 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$4,707 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $57,880 as a midpoint for Colorado, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $43,780 and the ninetieth is $83,550 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $46,848 take-home in Colorado comes from $57,880. It is the no-frills case: single filer, standard deduction, nothing set aside before tax. Real circumstances almost always reduce the tax. City and school-district taxes are not counted at all. Locally the work ranks 295 of 491.
- One number stands for prices across all of Colorado, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $46,210, the adjusted value of that $57,880 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 295 of 491 in the state.
- The Colorado median of $57,880 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $43,780 to $83,550. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- Retained pay of $46,848, from $57,880, assumes a single Colorado filer with the standard deduction and no elective deferrals. Pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions, dependants and itemized deductions all reduce it further; local income taxes, excluded here, would increase it in the states that levy them. This occupation ranks 295 of 491 locally, and the state ranks 35 of 50 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Colorado, so $46,210 — the adjusted value of that $57,880 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 295 of 491 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 $60,390 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
The range here is narrow. From $43,780 at the bottom tenth to $83,550 at the top, pay for this work clusters rather than spreads.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
The number and the value are different things. Colorado costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $46,210 rather than its face figure.
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 Colorado's own levy, $46,848 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 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 Colorado is $60,390. 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 ($43,780 to $83,550) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Colorado rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Colorado's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $46,210 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 $46,848 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Colorado 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 50 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.