Soil and Plant Scientists
What the pay figures show
- The District of Columbia pays soil and plant scientists the most on paper: $107,140. Two things happen before that money is yours. State tax takes a share, which puts Florida in front. Then local prices decide what is left, and Iowa wins at $82,842. The best offer and the best deal are not the same place.
- For soil and plant scientists, the District of Columbia's $107,140 median leads nominally and survives neither adjustment. State income tax differentials alone are sufficient to promote Florida; regional price parity then promotes Iowa, whose $82,842 real figure is the highest purchasing power available in this occupation. Nominal wage comparisons across states are therefore a poor guide to relocation, and the error compounds rather than cancels.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$78,850
People doing it
15,730
Highest paid
$107,140
DC
Best off, really
$82,842
IA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$48,680
Highest tenth
$138,120
Lowest, really
$48,872
VT
States with data
46
National average
$87,720
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.77%
IA, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Geography does a lot of the work in this job. Pay roughly doubles between the lowest state and the highest. Tax and prices narrow that gap. They come nowhere near closing it — the real range is still $48,872 up to $82,842.
- Only 15,730 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- Some states are missing here. There are figures for 46 jurisdictions, averaging $78,850 in the middle. A blank means nobody published a number, not that the job pays nothing there. The District of Columbia leads the published set.
- The nominal spread for soil and plant scientists approaches a factor of two across states. Deflating for tax and price level compresses it substantially but leaves a real range of $48,872 to $82,842, indicating that most of the dispersion is real purchasing power rather than compensation for local costs.
- National employment in soil and plant scientists is 15,730. ⚠️ 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.
- Coverage for soil and plant scientists runs to 46 jurisdictions, short of the full set. The omitted states are suppressed at source; treat the spread above as the range across reported states rather than across the country.
Pay band: Soil and Plant Scientists
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $48,680 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $78,850 |
| Top tenth earn over | $138,120 |
| This salary | $78,850 |
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 Soil and Plant Scientists
The national median for this job
$78,850around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $48,680 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $78,850 |
| Top tenth | $138,120 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Soil and Plant Scientists, state by state
The national median for this job
46states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Wyoming · $55,680 |
|---|---|
| Highest | District of Columbia · $107,140 |
| Spread | $51,460 |
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
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| IA | $96,310 | $73,536 | $82,842 |
| FL | $103,240 | $81,459 | $78,741 |
| ID | $95,150 | $71,578 | $78,292 |
| AK | $100,320 | $79,405 | $78,066 |
| DC | $107,140 | $78,065 | $70,453 |
| SD | $73,590 | $60,601 | $68,790 |
| IN | $80,030 | $62,800 | $68,124 |
| NE | $77,500 | $60,529 | $66,974 |
| SC | $78,850 | $61,389 | $65,884 |
| MS | $72,690 | $57,152 | $65,472 |
| AZ | $83,840 | $66,118 | $65,395 |
| MO | $76,080 | $59,714 | $65,075 |
| MT | $73,920 | $58,017 | $64,289 |
| NJ | $91,970 | $69,862 | $64,163 |
| NC | $76,330 | $59,991 | $63,726 |
| MD | $85,020 | $64,967 | $62,489 |
| MN | $79,610 | $60,946 | $61,926 |
| ME | $78,250 | $59,917 | $61,708 |
| ND | $65,320 | $54,650 | $61,701 |
| IL | $79,490 | $60,961 | $61,667 |
| NM | $69,480 | $55,609 | $61,524 |
| CA | $91,930 | $69,045 | $61,329 |
| NV | $71,450 | $59,095 | $60,935 |
| WA | $79,970 | $65,089 | $59,956 |
| KY | $67,340 | $53,964 | $59,650 |
| OR | $85,150 | $61,833 | $59,045 |
| CO | $75,430 | $59,284 | $58,476 |
| HI | $84,390 | $63,228 | $58,216 |
| OK | $63,910 | $51,156 | $57,944 |
| PA | $70,550 | $56,296 | $57,740 |
| KS | $65,670 | $51,570 | $57,322 |
| VA | $73,920 | $57,343 | $56,917 |
| WI | $66,200 | $52,896 | $56,819 |
| TN | $61,950 | $51,957 | $56,160 |
| NY | $77,800 | $59,958 | $55,710 |
| AL | $63,010 | $50,092 | $55,676 |
| LA | $60,200 | $49,131 | $55,613 |
| MI | $65,390 | $52,193 | $55,415 |
| GA | $65,170 | $51,891 | $53,662 |
| DE | $65,310 | $51,577 | $51,965 |
| WY | $55,680 | $46,919 | $51,645 |
| CT | $67,630 | $53,438 | $51,537 |
| OH | $56,820 | $46,989 | $51,179 |
| MA | $69,880 | $54,817 | $50,644 |
| UT | $59,900 | $47,644 | $50,151 |
| VT | $58,220 | $47,228 | $48,872 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for soil and plant scientists as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $78,850, 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 soil and plant scientists, 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 Florida, at $81,459.
- Levelling out prices for soil and plant scientists is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — Vermont sits at the bottom on $48,872.
- These are distribution medians for soil and plant scientists, with a national value of $78,850. 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 soil and plant scientists 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 $81,459, which leads in Florida.
- The price deflation applied to soil and plant scientists uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is Vermont at $48,872. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Vermont anchors the bottom at $48,872 — and the two source series are dated independently.