Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks
What the pay figures show
- Washington pays this job the most, $51,590. It still pays the most after tax. What it does not do is stay ahead once you count what living there costs. Level that out and North Dakota wins, at $44,853. Same work. A wage that goes further.
- For shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks, Washington leads both nominally at $51,590 and after tax — state income tax differentials are not large enough here to disturb the ordering. Regional price parity is: deflating take-home by each state's price level puts North Dakota first at $44,853. The adjustment that matters for this occupation is therefore cost of living rather than tax, which is the opposite of the assumption most relocation comparisons start from.
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
$45,260
People doing it
816,870
Highest paid
$51,590
WA
Best off, really
$44,853
ND, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$34,650
Highest tenth
$62,190
Lowest, really
$33,493
UT
States with data
51
National average
$46,810
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.57%
ND, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Pay for this job is fairly steady around the country. Count tax and local prices and the states bunch closer still, from $33,493 to $44,853. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- Roughly 816,870 people hold this job nationally, earning $45,260 in the middle. A solid, ordinary-sized job.
- Coverage is complete — all 51 jurisdictions publish this, on a middle wage of $45,260. Nothing is missing.
- Geographic dispersion in shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $33,493 through $44,853. Where nominal spread is this contained, relocation decisions in the occupation turn on non-wage factors, because the wage differential does not survive the adjustments in a form large enough to drive them.
- 816,870 are employed nationally in shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks, placing it well inside the reported range without approaching the highest-headcount occupations.
- Coverage for shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks is complete at 51 jurisdictions. No suppression applies, so the highest and lowest figures above are genuinely the national extremes.
Pay band: Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $34,650 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $45,260 |
| Top tenth earn over | $62,190 |
| This salary | $45,260 |
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 Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks
The national median for this job
$45,260around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $34,650 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $45,260 |
| Top tenth | $62,190 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Mississippi · $38,620 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Washington · $51,590 |
| Spread | $12,970 |
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 | $42,190 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $43,417 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ND | $46,730 | $39,728 | $44,853 |
| IA | $47,590 | $39,222 | $44,185 |
| SD | $43,680 | $37,277 | $42,314 |
| IN | $47,320 | $38,835 | $42,128 |
| WI | $47,490 | $38,851 | $41,731 |
| VT | $49,080 | $40,228 | $41,629 |
| OH | $45,270 | $38,026 | $41,417 |
| TN | $44,920 | $38,273 | $41,370 |
| WY | $43,000 | $36,731 | $40,431 |
| WA | $51,590 | $43,633 | $40,191 |
| NE | $44,110 | $36,319 | $40,186 |
| AK | $47,900 | $40,668 | $39,982 |
| MT | $43,590 | $35,913 | $39,795 |
| MN | $47,890 | $38,916 | $39,542 |
| KS | $44,110 | $35,450 | $39,404 |
| ME | $47,160 | $38,210 | $39,352 |
| MO | $43,480 | $36,010 | $39,243 |
| SC | $43,430 | $36,492 | $39,164 |
| MI | $45,140 | $36,782 | $39,054 |
| AR | $40,500 | $33,682 | $38,935 |
| KY | $42,830 | $35,212 | $38,923 |
| NH | $47,960 | $40,716 | $38,650 |
| PA | $45,780 | $37,559 | $38,522 |
| OK | $41,060 | $33,825 | $38,312 |
| CO | $47,130 | $38,684 | $38,156 |
| LA | $40,180 | $33,645 | $38,084 |
| NV | $43,210 | $36,899 | $38,048 |
| IL | $46,760 | $37,582 | $38,017 |
| NC | $43,040 | $35,554 | $37,768 |
| AZ | $45,410 | $37,934 | $37,520 |
| ID | $41,430 | $34,127 | $37,327 |
| TX | $42,190 | $36,080 | $37,129 |
| WV | $39,940 | $33,230 | $37,016 |
| RI | $45,520 | $37,468 | $36,947 |
| GA | $43,630 | $35,658 | $36,876 |
| MD | $47,280 | $38,287 | $36,827 |
| HI | $49,660 | $39,740 | $36,590 |
| MA | $49,240 | $39,602 | $36,588 |
| MS | $38,620 | $31,758 | $36,382 |
| DC | $49,660 | $40,268 | $36,342 |
| NM | $38,860 | $32,700 | $36,179 |
| DE | $44,120 | $35,749 | $36,018 |
| CT | $45,810 | $37,177 | $35,854 |
| VA | $44,290 | $35,981 | $35,713 |
| NY | $47,100 | $38,078 | $35,380 |
| AL | $38,940 | $31,811 | $35,357 |
| OR | $47,540 | $36,769 | $35,111 |
| NJ | $45,440 | $37,728 | $34,650 |
| CA | $46,520 | $38,562 | $34,253 |
| FL | $40,700 | $34,882 | $33,718 |
| UT | $39,050 | $31,819 | $33,493 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for this job as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $45,260, 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 $43,633.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for this job. 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 Utah, on $33,493.
- These are distribution medians for shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks, with a national value of $45,260. 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 shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks 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 $43,633, which leads in Washington.
- Real-terms results for shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks 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; Utah anchors the distribution at $33,493. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.