Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators in Rhode Island
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$51,111
after federal, FICA and Rhode Island tax
Tax takes
$12,219
19.3% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$50,399
Rhode Island costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Rhode Island — 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
$63,330
Kept after tax
$51,111
Worth in national money
$50,399
State rank
43
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for this job is on the low side in Rhode Island. The middle earner gets $63,330. That is 43 of 51 states, and about 19.45% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against other work in Rhode Island, this sits in the middle: 227 of 452 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $63,330, tax leaves $51,111, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $50,399 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $69,050, since top earners drag the number up.
- For stationary engineers and boiler operators, Rhode Island sits in the lower band at $63,330, ranking 43 of 51 and trailing the national median by about 19.45%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Stationary engineers and boiler operators ranks 227 of 452 occupations in Rhode Island 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.
- Because Rhode Island sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for stationary engineers and boiler operators — median $63,330 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $51,111 retained, $50,399 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $69,050 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $53,280 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $63,330 |
| Top tenth earn over | $86,740 |
| This salary | $63,330 |
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 Rhode Island | $51,111 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $53,066 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$4,209 |
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 | $60,897 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$5,091 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $63,330 as a midpoint for Rhode Island, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $53,280 and the ninetieth is $86,740 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $51,111 take-home in Rhode Island comes from $63,330. 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 227 of 452.
- Two cautions on $50,399, the adjusted value of that $63,330 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Rhode Island. No actual address matches that. The wage figures and price figures are also from different years. Each is published on its own timetable. This work sits at 227 of 452 locally.
- The Rhode Island median of $63,330 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $53,280 to $86,740. 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 $51,111, from $63,330, assumes a single Rhode Island 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 227 of 452 locally, and the state ranks 43 of 51 for it.
- This $50,399 adjusted figure, worked from $63,330, rests on a state-level price parity averaging over within-state dispersion larger than much of the between-state dispersion. Wage and price vintages differ by publication schedule. The result is directionally sound and not address-specific, for work at 227 of 452 in the state. The occupation ranks 227 of 452 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $69,050, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
The range here is narrow. From $53,280 at the bottom tenth to $86,740 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. Rhode Island costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $50,399 rather than its face figure.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Into four separate taxes, not one. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare apply everywhere, and Rhode Island adds its own income tax on top — which is why $51,111 of this wage survives to your account.
Can I compare this job across every state?
This occupation is published everywhere — all 51 of them — so comparing states measures real differences rather than gaps in the data.
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 Rhode Island is $69,050. 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 ($53,280 to $86,740) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Rhode Island rather than a national figure.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Rhode Island's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $50,399 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 $51,111 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Rhode Island 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.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.