Average Salary in Maryland (MD)

Maryland has the highest median household income of any US state at $98,461 — a number driven primarily by the federal workforce and its contractor ecosystem in the DC metro. The concentration of federal-adjacent employment in Montgomery, Prince George's, and Anne Arundel counties — NIH in Bethesda, the NSA and US Cyber Command at Fort Meade, and hundreds of defence and IT contractors — has produced one of the densest high-income professional clusters in the country. Baltimore operates as a separate economy, anchored by Johns Hopkins (the largest private employer in the state, with both its academic medical system and its Applied Physics Laboratory) and by the port of Baltimore, which handles more roll-on/roll-off automobile traffic than any other US port. The cost-of-living index of 120 — 20% above the national average — largely reflects Montgomery County's housing market. State income tax ranges from 2% to 5.75%, and counties layer on local income taxes of 2.25% to 3.2% that push the effective top rate close to 9%. The $15/hour minimum wage is indexed with step-ups. Property taxes are moderate. Maryland has both an estate tax and an inheritance tax. Full breakdown follows.