Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists in Maine
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$57,526
after federal, FICA and Maine tax
Tax takes
$16,964
22.8% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$59,246
Maine costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Maine — 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
$74,490
Kept after tax
$57,526
Worth in national money
$59,246
State rank
25
of 47 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Maine sits in the middle of the pack for zoologists and wildlife biologists. The median is $74,490, ranking 25 of 47 states with figures. Close enough to the national middle that where you live matters more than the headline suggests.
- Against other work in Maine, this sits in the middle: 149 of 484 occupations with published pay. Solidly ordinary for the state, which is not the same as ordinary nationally.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $74,490, tax leaves $57,526, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $59,246 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $76,560, since top earners drag the number up.
- Maine occupies the middle band for zoologists and wildlife biologists: a median of $74,490, ranking 25 of 47. Where nominal pay is close to the national figure, the tax and price adjustments below carry proportionally more weight in determining the real outcome.
- Zoologists and wildlife biologists ranks 149 of 484 occupations in Maine by median pay, in the middle bands. Within-state and national positions are separate measurements and a job commonly sits in different quartiles on each.
- Because Maine sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for zoologists and wildlife biologists — median $74,490 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $57,526 retained, $59,246 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $76,560 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $51,690 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $74,490 |
| Top tenth earn over | $97,680 |
| This salary | $74,490 |
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 Maine | $57,526 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $61,234 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$3,768 |
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 | $69,219 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$5,205 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $74,490 as a midpoint for Maine, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $51,690 and the ninetieth is $97,680 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- That $57,526 take-home in Maine comes from $74,490. 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 149 of 484.
- One number stands for prices across all of Maine, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $59,246, the adjusted value of that $74,490 median, as a way to compare states fairly, not as a quote for any particular place. The two datasets are also from different years. This job sits at 149 of 484 in the state.
- The Maine median of $74,490 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $51,690 to $97,680. 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 $57,526, from $74,490, assumes a single Maine 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 149 of 484 locally, and the state ranks 25 of 47 for it.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Maine, so $59,246 — the adjusted value of that $74,490 median — establishes comparability between states rather than accuracy within one. The wage and parity series are dated independently, each following its own publication cycle, and neither is projected forward. This occupation sits at 149 of 484 locally.
Questions people ask
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $51,690 at the tenth percentile, $97,680 at the ninetieth.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Maine sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $59,246 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 Maine's own levy, $57,526 remains.
Why is this job missing from some states?
Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 47 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.
What is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?
The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($51,690 to $97,680) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Maine rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Maine'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 $59,246 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 $57,526 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Maine 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 47 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.