Tour and Travel Guides in Kentucky
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$30,017
after federal, FICA and Kentucky tax
Tax takes
$6,053
16.8% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$33,180
Kentucky costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Kentucky — 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
$36,070
Kept after tax
$30,017
Worth in national money
$33,180
State rank
28
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Neither high nor low. Kentucky is 28 of 50 states for tour and travel guides, with a middle wage of $36,070. What that is worth is the question the rest of this page answers.
- Within Kentucky this is lower-paid work. Of 491 occupations the state publishes figures for, tour and travel guides ranks 430. That is the bottom quarter locally, whatever the national comparison says.
- Cheaper living works in this state's favor. From $36,070 you keep $30,017 after tax, and local prices stretch that to the equivalent of $33,180 at national prices. Averages run higher here, $37,680, since top earners drag the number up.
- Kentucky ranks 28 of 50 for tour and travel guides at $36,070. The nominal figure is unremarkable; the adjusted figures are where the state's actual position for this occupation is determined.
- Against every occupation Kentucky reports, tour and travel guides ranks 430 of 491, in the lowest quartile of the state's distribution. That position is set by the local labor market and is independent of how the state compares nationally for this work.
- Retained pay in Kentucky is $30,017 after the full tax stack, from $36,070. Because the state's price level runs below the national average, the price-adjusted equivalent is $33,180 — a real-terms figure describing purchasing power rather than compensation, and not a number that appears on any pay stub. Mean pay of $37,680 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 | $28,090 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $36,070 |
| Top tenth earn over | $47,690 |
| This salary | $36,070 |
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 Kentucky | $30,017 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $31,162 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$1,112 |
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 | $34,645 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$1,345 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 90 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Kentucky earn less than $36,070. The published range is $28,090 up to $47,690, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- That $30,017 take-home in Kentucky comes from $36,070. 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 491.
- Two cautions on $33,180, the adjusted value of that $36,070 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Kentucky. 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 491 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for tour and travel guides in Kentucky the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $28,090 to $47,690. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- Retained pay of $30,017, from $36,070, assumes a single Kentucky 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 491 locally, and the state ranks 28 of 50 for it.
- This $33,180 adjusted figure, worked from $36,070, 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 491 in the state. The occupation ranks 430 of 491 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
Half earn more than this and half earn less. The average sits at $37,680 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
The range here is narrow. From $28,090 at the bottom tenth to $47,690 at the top, pay for this work clusters rather than spreads.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
Further than the number implies. Kentucky is cheaper than the national average, so this take-home behaves like $33,180 in national terms.
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 Kentucky adds its own income tax on top — which is why $30,017 of this wage survives to your account.
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 Kentucky is $37,680. 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 ($28,090 to $47,690) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Kentucky rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Kentucky'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 $33,180 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 $30,017 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Kentucky 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.