Tour and Travel Guides in Pennsylvania
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$27,613
after federal, FICA and Pennsylvania tax
Tax takes
$5,297
16.1% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$28,321
Pennsylvania costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Pennsylvania — 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
$32,910
Kept after tax
$27,613
Worth in national money
$28,321
State rank
38
of 50 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Pay for tour and travel guides is on the low side in Pennsylvania. The middle earner gets $32,910. That is 38 of 50 states, and about 13.67% under the national figure. Whether that matters depends on what things cost here.
- Against 492 occupations Pennsylvania publishes, tour and travel guides lands at 469. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $32,910, tax leaves $27,613, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $28,321 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $36,500, since top earners drag the number up.
- For tour and travel guides, Pennsylvania sits in the lower band at $32,910, ranking 38 of 50 and trailing the national median by about 13.67%. Nominal rankings routinely invert once tax and regional price level are applied, so this position should not be read as the conclusion.
- Within Pennsylvania, this work ranks 469 of 492 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 Pennsylvania sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for tour and travel guides — median $32,910 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $27,613 retained, $28,321 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $36,500 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 | $23,390 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $32,910 |
| Top tenth earn over | $53,540 |
| This salary | $32,910 |
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 Pennsylvania | $27,613 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $28,623 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$1,134 |
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 | $31,653 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$1,372 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 98 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Pennsylvania earn less than $32,910. The published range is $23,390 up to $53,540, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- In Pennsylvania the take-home figure of $27,613, from $32,910, assumes one filer, no dependants, and nothing paid into a pension before tax. Each of those lowers the bill, so treat it as the plain case. City and school-district income taxes are not included either, and in a few states those are real money. It ranks 469 of 492 occupations here.
- Two cautions on $28,321, the adjusted value of that $32,910 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Pennsylvania. 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 469 of 492 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for tour and travel guides in Pennsylvania the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $23,390 to $53,540. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- Take-home for Pennsylvania is computed for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependants and no pre-tax contributions, giving $27,613 from $32,910. Each omitted item reduces taxable income, so the figure is a lower bound on retained pay for this household shape. Municipal and school-district income taxes are excluded, which understates the burden materially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The occupation ranks 469 of 492 locally.
- This $28,321 adjusted figure, worked from $32,910, 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 469 of 492 in the state. The occupation ranks 469 of 492 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 $36,500 because a long tail of high pay lifts it, so the two answer different questions.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
One title, many jobs. The lowest tenth take $23,390, the highest tenth $53,540, and what separates them is experience, employer and what exactly the role does.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Pennsylvania sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $28,321 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 Pennsylvania's own levy, $27,613 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 Pennsylvania is $36,500. 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 ($23,390) and the ninetieth ($53,540) 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?
Pennsylvania'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 $28,321 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 $27,613 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Pennsylvania 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.