Tour and Travel Guides in Arkansas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$28,922
after federal, FICA and Arkansas tax
Tax takes
$5,368
15.7% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$33,433
Arkansas costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Arkansas — 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
$34,290
Kept after tax
$28,922
Worth in national money
$33,433
State rank
34
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for tour and travel guides is on the low side in Arkansas. The middle earner gets $34,290. That is 34 of 50 states, and about 10.05% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against 489 occupations Arkansas publishes, tour and travel guides lands at 431. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Arkansas is cheaper than average, and that shows up here. From $34,290 the take-home is $28,922; adjusted for what things actually cost, it goes as far as $33,433 would nationally. The average comes to $36,240, above the middle, thanks to the top of the range.
- For tour and travel guides, Arkansas sits in the lower band at $34,290, ranking 34 of 50 and trailing the national median by about 10.05%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Within Arkansas, this work ranks 431 of 489 occupations by median pay, in the bottom quartile. The within-state position is the more salient one for anyone weighing this job against alternatives available to them locally.
- Post-tax income for tour and travel guides in Arkansas, on $34,290, is $28,922 — equivalent to $33,433 once regional price parity is applied. ⚠️ The adjustment uses a statewide index that describes no particular address; within-state price variation, concentrated in housing, routinely exceeds the difference between two states. At $36,240 the mean overshoots the median — the usual right-skewed shape.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Tour and Travel Guides
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $26,060 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $34,290 |
| Top tenth earn over | $47,980 |
| This salary | $34,290 |
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 Arkansas | $28,922 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $29,732 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$2,836 |
The raise and the real gain point in opposite directions here.
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 | $33,282 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$3,430 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 87 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $34,290 as a midpoint for Arkansas, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $26,060 and the ninetieth is $47,980 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Arkansas's $28,922, worked from $34,290. That is on purpose. It lets states be compared with each other, not with each other's family circumstances. Local city taxes are left out. Locally this work ranks 431 of 489.
- One number stands for prices across all of Arkansas, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $33,433, the adjusted value of that $34,290 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 431 of 489 in the state.
- The Arkansas median of $34,290 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $26,060 to $47,980. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- The Arkansas take-home of $28,922, on $34,290 for work ranking 431 of 489 locally, models the simplest household deliberately: holding it constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful. It also means the absolute figure overstates liability for most real filers, and municipal income taxes are outside the model entirely. The occupation ranks 431 of 489 in the state.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Arkansas, so $33,433 — the adjusted value of that $34,290 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 431 of 489 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 $36,240, 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?
Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $26,060 at the tenth percentile, $47,980 at the ninetieth.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Arkansas sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $33,433 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
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 Arkansas's own levy, $28,922 remains.
Why is this job missing from some states?
A blank is a suppression, not a zero. 50 states have a published figure for this work; the others had too few responses to release one.
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 Arkansas is $36,240. 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 ($26,060 to $47,980) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Arkansas rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Arkansas's regional price parity is at or below the national average, so nominal wages understate purchasing power. Take-home deflated by the state price level is $33,433 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $28,922 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Arkansas 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.