Tour and Travel Guides in Delaware
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$27,588
after federal, FICA and Delaware tax
Tax takes
$5,622
16.9% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$27,796
Delaware costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Delaware — 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
$33,210
Kept after tax
$27,588
Worth in national money
$27,796
State rank
36
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for tour and travel guides is on the low side in Delaware. The middle earner gets $33,210. That is 36 of 50 states, and about 12.88% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against 445 occupations Delaware publishes, tour and travel guides lands at 430. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $33,210, tax leaves $27,588, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $27,796 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $35,570, since top earners drag the number up.
- For tour and travel guides, Delaware sits in the lower band at $33,210, ranking 36 of 50 and trailing the national median by about 12.88%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Within Delaware, this work ranks 430 of 445 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.
- Because Delaware sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for tour and travel guides — median $33,210 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $27,588 retained, $27,796 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $35,570 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Tour and Travel Guides
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $31,200 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $33,210 |
| Top tenth earn over | $38,140 |
| This salary | $33,210 |
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 Delaware | $27,588 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $28,864 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$1,908 |
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 | $31,622 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,307 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 99 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $33,210 as a midpoint for Delaware, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $31,200 and the ninetieth is $38,140 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $27,588 take-home in Delaware comes from $33,210. 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 430 of 445.
- Two cautions on $27,796, the adjusted value of that $33,210 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Delaware. 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 430 of 445 locally.
- The Delaware median of $33,210 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $31,200 to $38,140. 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 $27,588, from $33,210, assumes a single Delaware 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 430 of 445 locally, and the state ranks 36 of 50 for it.
- This $27,796 adjusted figure, worked from $33,210, 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 430 of 445 in the state. The occupation ranks 430 of 445 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 $35,570, 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?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $31,200 and the top tenth $38,140, so most people doing this work in Delaware sit within a fairly tight band.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Delaware sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $27,796 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
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 Delaware adds its own income tax on top — which is why $27,588 of this wage survives to your account.
Why is this job missing from some states?
The survey withholds small samples rather than publish an unreliable number. Pay appears for 50 states here, and a missing state means too few reports, not no jobs.
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 Delaware is $35,570. 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 ($31,200 to $38,140) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Delaware rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Delaware'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 $27,796 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 $27,588 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Delaware 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.