Tour and Travel Guides in Oklahoma
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$27,066
after federal, FICA and Oklahoma tax
Tax takes
$5,084
15.8% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$30,657
Oklahoma costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Oklahoma — 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
$32,150
Kept after tax
$27,066
Worth in national money
$30,657
State rank
41
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- The nominal figure here is modest. Oklahoma pays tour and travel guides a middle wage of $32,150, 41 of 50 states and about 15.66% below the national middle. Hold that thought until the adjusted numbers.
- Within Oklahoma this is lower-paid work. Of 492 occupations the state publishes figures for, tour and travel guides ranks 446. That is the bottom quarter locally, whatever the national comparison says.
- Cheaper living works in this state's favor. From $32,150 you keep $27,066 after tax, and local prices stretch that to the equivalent of $30,657 at national prices. Averages run higher here, $33,140, since top earners drag the number up.
- Oklahoma's $32,150 median for tour and travel guides places it 41 of 50 states, about 15.66% below national. Because both the tax and price adjustments tend to favor lower-nominal states, this ranking is the least stable of the three reported here.
- Against every occupation Oklahoma reports, tour and travel guides ranks 446 of 492, 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 Oklahoma is $27,066 after the full tax stack, from $32,150. Because the state's price level runs below the national average, the price-adjusted equivalent is $30,657 — a real-terms figure describing purchasing power rather than compensation, and not a number that appears on any pay stub. Mean pay of $33,140 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.
Pay band: Tour and Travel Guides
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $18,690 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $32,150 |
| Top tenth earn over | $46,620 |
| This salary | $32,150 |
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 Oklahoma | $27,066 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $28,013 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$1,831 |
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 | $30,972 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$2,214 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 88 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Oklahoma earn less than $32,150. The published range is $18,690 up to $46,620, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- That $27,066 take-home in Oklahoma comes from $32,150. 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 446 of 492.
- Two cautions on $30,657, the adjusted value of that $32,150 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Oklahoma. 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 446 of 492 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for tour and travel guides in Oklahoma the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $18,690 to $46,620. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- Retained pay of $27,066, from $32,150, assumes a single Oklahoma 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 446 of 492 locally, and the state ranks 41 of 50 for it.
- This $30,657 adjusted figure, worked from $32,150, 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 446 of 492 in the state. The occupation ranks 446 of 492 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 $33,140, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $18,690, the highest tenth $46,620, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
Further than the number implies. Oklahoma is cheaper than the national average, so this take-home behaves like $30,657 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 Oklahoma adds its own income tax on top — which is why $27,066 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 Oklahoma is $33,140. 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 drives the percentile dispersion in this occupation?
Dispersion between the tenth percentile ($18,690) and the ninetieth ($46,620) exceeds the family median dispersion. SOC codes aggregate roles differing in seniority, industry and specialisation, and BLS does not disaggregate below the detailed occupation level, so within-title variance is not separable from the published series.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Oklahoma'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 $30,657 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 $27,066 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Oklahoma 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.