Looks pretty uniform. The high-tax states have the highest incomes.
DC should never be a state.
If you kick out the outliers (highest - Wash D.C. and lowest - Mississippi), the median is $60,300 - $1,700 less than with the outliers left in.
The northeast states minus Maine plus California, Virginia (Fed Gov) and Alaska, top the list. What surprises me is Florida ranks fairly low, with only six states ranked lower. Ohio is right at the median.
1 District of Columbia $102,970
2 Massachusetts $79,113
3 Washington $76,323
4 Maryland $74,982
5 New Jersey $74,164
6 Connecticut $72,834
7 Colorado $72,028
8 New York $70,254
9 California $70,031
10 New Hampshire $69,275
11 Alaska $69,063
12 Virginia $67,309
13 Rhode Island $67,142
14 Minnesota $66,932
15 Illinois $65,513
16 Oregon $65,360
17 Vermont $64,971
18 Utah $62,249
19 Pennsylvania $61,973
20 Delaware $61,651
21 Maine $60,948
22 Hawaii $60,836
23 Wisconsin $60,803
24 Michigan $60,613
25 Arizona $60,459
26 Ohio $60,300
27 North Dakota $60,170
28 Georgia $59,240
29 Texas $58,650
30 Idaho $58,476
31 North Carolina $57,727
32 Iowa $57,716
33 Kansas $57,418
34 Wyoming $57,343
35 Indiana $57,303
36 Nebraska $56,723
37 Missouri $56,210
38 Montana $55,992
39 South Dakota $55,708
40 South Carolina $55,325
41 Tennessee $55,313
42 Nevada $54,800
43 Florida $54,311
44 New Mexico $54,000
45 Kentucky $53,824
46 Alabama $53,459
47 Louisiana $52,959
48 West Virginia $52,080
49 Oklahoma $51,676
50 Arkansas $50,899
51 Mississippi $50,120
Salary alone is useless data.
Income needs to be compared to cost of living (food, car, housing, gas, utilities, etc) for a meaningful comparison.
DC’s obscene.
Otherwise the range isn’t all that great.
What’s missing from these data is the cost of living. The cost of living reflects differences in housing costs (which are astronomical in certain places), heating and air conditioning costs, and auto insurance rates, among other things. With my cost of living-adjusted figures, compare CA or NY to TX.
I got the cost of living by state from: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/cost-of-living-index-by-state#title
Cost of Living Median Salary (000s) Real Median Salary
AK 123.8 69.1 57.8
AL 88.0 53.5 63.0
AR 88.7 50.9 59.5
AZ 111.5 60.5 56.2
CA 144.8 70.0 50.1
CO 102.0 72.0 73.1
CT 112.3 72.8 67.2
DC 141.9 103.0 75.2
DE 100.8 61.7 63.4
FL 102.8 54.2 54.6
GA 91.3 59.2 67.2
HI 186.9 60.8 33.7
IA 89.7 57.7 66.6
ID 102.0 58.5 59.4
IL 94.4 65.5 71.9
IN 90.5 57.3 65.6
KS 87.0 57.4 68.4
KY 93.0 53.8 59.9
LA 92.2 53.0 59.6
MA 145.9 79.1 56.2
MD 115.3 75.0 67.4
ME 112.1 60.9 56.3
MI 90.4 60.6 69.4
MN 95.1 66.9 72.9
MO 88.7 56.2 65.6
MS 87.9 50.1 59.0
MT 94.4 56.0 61.5
NC 97.8 57.7 61.1
ND 91.9 60.2 67.9
NE 93.1 56.7 63.1
NH 112.6 69.3 63.8
NM 93.3 54.0 60.0
NV 101.3 54.8 56.0
NY 123.3 70.3 59.1
OH 94.2 60.3 66.3
OK 85.7 51.7 62.5
OR 112.0 65.4 60.5
PA 95.1 62.0 67.5
RI 112.2 67.1 62.0
SC 95.9 55.3 59.7
SD 92.2 55.7 62.6
TN 90.5 55.3 63.3
TX 92.7 58.7 65.6
UT 104.9 62.2 61.4
VA 100.7 67.3 69.2
VT 114.4 65.0 58.9
WA 114.2 76.3 69.2
WI 97.0 60.8 64.9
WV 84.1 52.1 64.2
WY 95.5 57.3 62.2