Slaughterers and Meat Packers
What the pay figures show
- Two answers for slaughterers and meat packers. Best paid: Colorado, at $50,480. Tax does not change that. Best off: Nebraska, at $44,212 once local prices count. Tax was not what separated them. Rent was.
- Colorado's $50,480 median for slaughterers and meat packers survives the tax adjustment intact, so state income tax is not a differentiator in this occupation's geography. It does not survive price deflation: Nebraska takes the top position at $44,212. Housing is where regional price variation concentrates, which is why the reordering appears at this step and not the previous one.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$40,130
People doing it
69,950
Highest paid
$50,480
CO
Best off, really
$44,212
NE, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$33,340
Highest tenth
$51,090
Lowest, really
$26,174
NY
States with data
47
National average
$41,770
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
90.38%
NE, 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 $26,174 and $44,212. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- Only 69,950 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- Not every state reports this one. The figures here cover 47 jurisdictions, and the middle wage across them is $40,130. A state you do not see is one with no published number, not one paying nothing. Of those published, Colorado pays most.
- Interstate variation for slaughterers and meat packers is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $26,174 to $44,212. 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.
- National employment in slaughterers and meat packers is 69,950. ⚠️ At this headcount the state-level medians rest on comparatively thin samples, and year-to-year movement in any one state reflects sampling as much as wages.
- BLS publishes an occupational median for slaughterers and meat packers in 47 jurisdictions, short of the full set. ⚠️ Absence reflects estimate suppression — small samples or disclosure rules — rather than absence of employment, so the state comparison above is over the published subset.
Pay band: Slaughterers and Meat Packers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $33,340 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $40,130 |
| Top tenth earn over | $51,090 |
| This salary | $40,130 |
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 Slaughterers and Meat Packers
The national median for this job
$40,130around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $33,340 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $40,130 |
| Top tenth | $51,090 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Slaughterers and Meat Packers, state by state
The national median for this job
47states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Nevada · $30,430 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Colorado · $50,480 |
| Spread | $20,050 |
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 | $43,160 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $44,415 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NE | $48,910 | $39,957 | $44,212 |
| SD | $44,410 | $37,863 | $42,980 |
| KS | $48,240 | $38,538 | $42,836 |
| OK | $45,970 | $37,549 | $42,531 |
| MT | $46,700 | $38,265 | $42,402 |
| SC | $46,000 | $38,407 | $41,219 |
| IA | $43,820 | $36,336 | $40,934 |
| CO | $50,480 | $41,228 | $40,666 |
| AZ | $49,020 | $40,745 | $40,299 |
| MO | $44,490 | $36,774 | $40,075 |
| MI | $45,850 | $37,323 | $39,627 |
| IN | $43,770 | $36,087 | $39,147 |
| ND | $39,730 | $34,103 | $38,503 |
| LA | $40,120 | $33,599 | $38,032 |
| TX | $43,160 | $36,859 | $37,931 |
| UT | $44,040 | $35,606 | $37,480 |
| IL | $44,950 | $36,217 | $36,637 |
| AR | $37,800 | $31,612 | $36,543 |
| ID | $40,370 | $33,331 | $36,457 |
| VT | $42,220 | $34,946 | $36,163 |
| MN | $43,360 | $35,519 | $36,090 |
| WA | $45,100 | $38,418 | $35,388 |
| NC | $39,930 | $33,179 | $35,245 |
| KY | $38,330 | $31,754 | $35,100 |
| NJ | $45,230 | $37,571 | $34,506 |
| OH | $36,800 | $31,453 | $34,258 |
| OR | $45,980 | $35,652 | $34,045 |
| WI | $37,510 | $31,323 | $33,646 |
| TN | $35,790 | $30,937 | $33,440 |
| AL | $36,360 | $29,851 | $33,179 |
| ME | $38,740 | $31,971 | $32,927 |
| MS | $33,650 | $27,964 | $32,035 |
| NH | $39,270 | $33,733 | $32,022 |
| PA | $37,330 | $31,029 | $31,824 |
| GA | $36,770 | $30,489 | $31,529 |
| RI | $37,570 | $31,379 | $30,942 |
| VA | $37,430 | $30,863 | $30,634 |
| MD | $37,650 | $31,007 | $29,824 |
| CA | $39,420 | $33,141 | $29,438 |
| HI | $38,890 | $31,856 | $29,331 |
| CT | $36,290 | $30,316 | $29,237 |
| NM | $30,560 | $26,366 | $29,170 |
| FL | $34,430 | $29,845 | $28,849 |
| MA | $37,780 | $30,967 | $28,610 |
| NV | $30,430 | $26,631 | $27,460 |
| DE | $31,200 | $26,084 | $26,281 |
| NY | $33,880 | $28,170 | $26,174 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for slaughterers and meat packers as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $40,130, 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.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for slaughterers and meat packers. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Colorado keeps the most at $41,228.
- One price figure per state stands behind the real-terms numbers for slaughterers and meat packers. 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 New York, on $26,174.
- These are distribution medians for slaughterers and meat packers, with a national value of $40,130. 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.
- The household modeled for slaughterers and meat packers is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Colorado retains the most, $41,228. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms results for slaughterers and meat packers 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; New York anchors the distribution at $26,174. Wage and price series are published on separate cycles and therefore carry different reference periods.