Waiters and Waitresses in Illinois
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$25,850
after federal, FICA and Illinois tax
Tax takes
$5,350
17.1% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$26,149
Illinois costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the bottom tenth percentile for this work in Illinois — 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
$31,200
Kept after tax
$25,850
Worth in national money
$26,149
State rank
28
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Illinois pays waiters and waitresses around $31,200 at the midpoint, 28 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Against 494 occupations Illinois publishes, waiters and waitresses lands at 492. That is the lower quarter. That is the comparison people actually feel, more than any national table.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $31,200, tax leaves $25,850, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $26,149 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $35,610, since top earners drag the number up.
- For waiters and waitresses the Illinois median is $31,200, ranking 28 of 51 states reporting. Mid-band nominal positions are the ones most frequently reordered by the adjustments, because no large wage premium exists to absorb a state's tax or price level.
- Within Illinois, this work ranks 492 of 494 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 Illinois sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for waiters and waitresses — median $31,200 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $25,850 retained, $26,149 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $35,610 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Waiters and Waitresses
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $31,200 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $31,200 |
| Top tenth earn over | $49,470 |
| This salary | $31,200 |
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 Illinois | $25,850 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $27,249 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$1,892 |
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 | $29,458 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$2,289 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 99 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- A median is the middle, not an offer. Half of waiters and waitresses in Illinois earn under $31,200 and half over. The published range runs $31,200 at the tenth percentile to $49,470 at the ninetieth. Experience and employer move an individual a long way inside that.
- That $25,850 take-home in Illinois comes from $31,200. 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 492 of 494.
- Two cautions on $26,149, the adjusted value of that $31,200 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Illinois. 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 492 of 494 locally.
- Figures are distribution medians for waiters and waitresses in Illinois, not entry or offer rates. The published band runs $31,200 to $49,470; within-state dispersion of that width routinely exceeds the dispersion between states, so tenure, employer and metropolitan area predict an individual's pay better than geography does.
- Retained pay of $25,850, from $31,200, assumes a single Illinois 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 492 of 494 locally, and the state ranks 28 of 51 for it.
- This $26,149 adjusted figure, worked from $31,200, 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 492 of 494 in the state. The occupation ranks 492 of 494 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
It is the midpoint, not the average. The average here is $35,610, dragged up by high earners; the middle figure describes a typical worker better.
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $31,200 and the top tenth $49,470, so most people doing this work in Illinois sit within a fairly tight band.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Illinois sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $26,149 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 Illinois's own levy, $25,850 remains.
Can I compare this job across every state?
This occupation is published everywhere — all 51 of them — so comparing states measures real differences rather than gaps in the data.
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 Illinois is $35,610. 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 $49,470) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Illinois rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Illinois'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 $26,149 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 $25,850 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Illinois 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.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.