What Office Clerks, General earn in Hood County, TX
If you are weighing a move or a job offer, start with $36,630: the median annual pay for Office Clerks, General in Hood County, TX. Spread over a standard 2,080-hour work year, that is $17.61 an hour. Because the wage survey covers the whole North Region of Texas nonmetropolitan area, the number reflects employers across the region rather than a single town or a single company.
The mean wage is $39,120, which is 6.8% above the median, a sign that a group of high earners lifts the average. The survey counts about 5,020 people working in this occupation across the North Region of Texas nonmetropolitan area, so the estimate rests on a substantial pool of workers. Hood County, TX has roughly 65,894 residents, according to the population figures used by the rent data.
The salary range, from entry level to top earners
Pay for Office Clerks, General in the North Region of Texas nonmetropolitan area is not one number. The lowest-paid tenth of workers earn up to $23,470 a year ($11.28 an hour), while the highest-paid tenth earn $58,450 or more ($28.10 an hour). That is a gap of $34,980 between the bottom and the top of the scale. The middle half of workers falls between $29,010 at the 25th percentile and $46,110 at the 75th percentile. A top-tier earner makes 2.5 times what someone at the bottom makes, so experience, certification and employer all matter.
What the hourly rate looks like
Converted to an hourly wage, the median for Office Clerks, General in Hood County, TX is $17.61. A full-time schedule of 40 hours for 52 weeks adds up to $36,630, and the same salary is $3,053 a month before taxes or about $1,409 per biweekly pay period. After taxes the same job pays $15.17 per hour of take-home income, which is the number that actually has to cover rent and groceries.
About this occupation: Office Clerks, General
The U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET database describes the work of Office Clerks, General this way: "Perform duties too varied and diverse to be classified in any specific office clerical occupation, requiring knowledge of office systems and procedures. Clerical duties may be assigned in accordance with the office procedures of individual establishments and may include a combination of answering telephones, bookkeeping, typing or word processing, office machine operation, and filing."
Core tasks recorded by O*NET include: "Communicate with customers, employees, and other individuals to answer questions, disseminate or explain information, take orders, and address complaints"; "Answer telephones, direct calls, and take messages"; "Compile, copy, sort, and file records of office activities, business transactions, and other activities"; "Operate office machines, such as photocopiers and scanners, facsimile machines, voice mail systems, and personal computers".
Job outlook for Office Clerks, General
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects national employment in this occupation to shrink from 2,600,000 jobs in 2025 to 2,443,700 in 2035, a change of -6%, slower than the 3.5% projected for all occupations. The projection counts 249,000 openings a year on average, including positions created by growth and positions left by workers who retire or move to another occupation; that equals 9.6% of current employment each year.
Typical entry-level education: high school diploma or equivalent. Typical on-the-job training to reach competency: short-term on-the-job training. BLS lists a national median annual wage of $45,010 for this occupation; the Hood County, TX median of $36,630 is 18.6% below it.
How pay in Hood County, TX compares
Compared with the Texas average
The local median of $36,630 sits below the Texas employment-weighted average of $40,264. The shortfall is $3,634 a year, or 9.0%, so Hood County, TX is a lower-paying market for this job than the state as a whole. Within Texas, the highest median we track for this job is $44,870 in Travis County, TX.
Compared with the national average
The national employment-weighted average for Office Clerks, General is $44,586 across the contiguous United States. At $36,630, Hood County, TX pays $7,956 less, which is 17.8% below that benchmark. Keep in mind that a higher salary only helps if living costs do not rise faster, which is why the cost sections below matter as much as the headline number.
Where this job ranks in Hood County, TX
Among the 402 occupations with published wages in Hood County, TX, Office Clerks, General ranks number 319 by median pay, ahead of about 21% of them. The best-paying occupation we track here is General and Operations Managers at $80,820 a year, which is $44,190 more than the median for Office Clerks, General.
From gross pay to take-home pay
A salary of $36,630 does not arrive in full. We model a single filer with wage income only, the standard deduction and tax-year 2025 rules, and we keep the three tax layers apart: federal income tax, FICA (Social Security and Medicare) and state income tax. Together they take $5,069 a year, which leaves $31,561, or $2,630 a month.
Put another way, of every $100 earned, about $14 goes to taxes and $86 reaches the paycheck. The overall effective tax rate is 13.8%.
Federal income tax
After the $15,750 standard deduction, taxable income is $20,880. Federal brackets are marginal, so only the slice of income above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate; the last dollars of this salary fall in the 12% bracket. The resulting federal income tax is $2,267, an effective 6.2% of gross pay, well below the 12% marginal rate because the lower brackets are cheaper.
Social Security and Medicare (FICA)
Payroll taxes are a flat percentage of wages. Social Security takes 6.2% up to a wage base of $176,100, which costs $2,271 on this salary. Medicare takes 1.45%, or $531. FICA totals $2,802, which is 7.7% of gross pay.
State income tax in Texas
There is no state income tax on wages in Texas, which means Office Clerks, General in Hood County, TX keep the full $31,561 left after federal and payroll taxes. For scale, a hypothetical flat 5% state tax on this salary would cost about $1,832 a year, so the absence of a state tax is worth roughly $153 a month.
A cross-check with IRS data for Hood County, TX
IRS Statistics of Income data for Hood County, TX show an average adjusted gross income of $95,587 per return and an average effective federal income tax rate of 13.8% across all filers. Filers in the $25,000 to under $50,000 bracket, where this salary falls, paid an average of 5.0%, compared with the 6.2% estimated here for a single filer taking the standard deduction. Gaps between the two reflect filing status, dependents, credits and other income, none of which a single-person wage estimate includes.
Cost of living in Hood County, TX
Take-home pay only means something next to what life costs. We price four basics for one adult in Hood County, TX: a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline. All of them are converted to annual figures first, then compared with the $31,561 of take-home pay.
Rent
The HUD Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Hood County, TX is $1,297 a month, or $15,564 a year. A two-bedroom costs $1,463 a month. For Office Clerks, General, a one-bedroom absorbs 49.3% of take-home pay and 42.5% of gross pay.
Food
The USDA Thrifty Food Plan (August 2026) puts the cost of a nutritious home-cooked diet for an adult at about $3,436 a year, which is $286 a month or $66.07 a week. That equals 9.4% of gross pay for Office Clerks, General in Hood County, TX. It is a thrifty budget with no restaurant meals, so treat it as a floor.
Energy and gasoline
Using Texas residential prices from the Energy Information Administration and national household averages for consumption, electricity costs about $1,578 a year and other home energy such as natural gas about $719, for $2,297 in total. Gasoline in Texas averages $2.88 per gallon; at about 463 gallons a year (11,106 miles at 24 miles per gallon) fuel adds $1,334.
What is left over
Add the four basics together and living costs come to $22,631 a year, 72% of take-home pay. That leaves $8,929 a year, or $744 a month, for savings, transportation beyond fuel, health care, debt and everything else. That margin equals 24.4% of gross pay, a comfortable cushion by common budgeting rules.
Local housing and commute data for Hood County, TX
The budget above covers rent, food, energy and gasoline. Three more local facts shape what a paycheck buys in Hood County, TX: property taxes, housing prices and the daily commute. The figures below are exact U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates for Hood County, TX, set beside the Texas and national medians.
Property taxes in Hood County, TX
Homeowners in Hood County, TX pay a median of $3,217 a year in real estate taxes, 24% below the Texas median of $4,232 and 3% above the U.S. median of $3,119. Against a median home value of $306,400, the median tax bill is 1.05% of that value (the ratio of the two county medians). For a worker paid the local Office Clerks, General median of $36,630, a tax bill of that size would equal 8.8% of gross pay, which matters for anyone planning to buy rather than rent.
Rents, home prices and household income in Hood County, TX
Renters in Hood County, TX pay a median gross rent of $1,428 a month in the Census survey, 2% above the Texas median of $1,403. HUD's Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment, which this site uses in the budget, is $1,297 a month; the two measures differ because the Census figure covers units of every size that renters already occupy, while the HUD figure is a one-bedroom benchmark. The median value of an owner-occupied home is $306,400, 8% above the Texas median of $283,800. Median household income is $88,160, 12% above the Texas median of $78,476, so a year of one-bedroom Fair Market Rent equals 17.7% of that income.
Commuting in Hood County, TX
Workers in Hood County, TX who travel to a workplace spend an average of 32.8 minutes each way, 23% above the Texas average of 26.7. For someone who commutes five days a week, that is 5.5 hours of round-trip travel every week, a cost the budget does not price. 14.4% of workers in Hood County, TX work from home, compared with 15.1% nationally, which removes the commute for them.
Can Office Clerks, General afford to live in Hood County, TX?
The 30% rent guideline
A common rule of thumb says rent should stay under 30% of gross income. For a gross salary of $36,630 that ceiling is $916 a month. The one-bedroom Fair Market Rent of $1,297 is $381 over it, so rent breaks the guideline. Put as a wage, covering a one-bedroom at the 30% guideline takes $24.94 an hour; the median for Office Clerks, General is $17.61, which is 29% below that mark. Another way to see it: at $15.17 of take-home pay an hour, a one-bedroom takes about 19.7 working hours every week.
Splitting a two-bedroom
Sharing a two-bedroom at $1,463 a month means $732 each. Compared with renting a one-bedroom alone, that saves $6,786 a year. With a roommate, the yearly margin after the basics becomes $15,715.
How fast you can save
At $744 a month of margin, building a $10,000 emergency fund would take about 14 months. Setting aside half of the margin stretches the same goal to about 28 months. These figures ignore interest, raises and any spending beyond the four basics.
Frequently asked questions about Office Clerks, General pay in Hood County, TX
What is the hourly wage for Office Clerks, General in Hood County, TX?
The median is $17.61 per hour, based on $36,630 a year over 2,080 hours. Hourly pay runs from about $11.28 at the 10th percentile to $28.10 at the 90th percentile.
What is the take-home pay for Office Clerks, General in Hood County, TX?
After federal income tax, FICA, the median salary of $36,630 becomes $31,561 a year. That is $2,630 a month, $1,214 every two weeks or $607 a week.
What percentage of pay goes to taxes for Office Clerks, General in Hood County, TX?
Total taxes are $5,069 a year, an effective rate of 13.8%: $2,267 federal income tax, $2,802 FICA and no Texas income tax.
Is pay for Office Clerks, General in Hood County, TX above the Texas average?
No. The local median of $36,630 is -9.0% versus the Texas average of $40,264, a difference of $3,634 a year.
Is a one-bedroom rent affordable on the median Office Clerks, General salary in Hood County, TX?
A one-bedroom costs $1,297 a month against take-home pay of $2,630, which is 49.3% of take-home pay. That does not meet the 30%-of-gross guideline, which allows up to $916 a month.
How much is left after rent, food and energy for Office Clerks, General in Hood County, TX?
About $744 a month ($8,929 a year) remains after a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline, which together cost $22,631 a year.
What hourly wage covers a one-bedroom in Hood County, TX at the 30% guideline?
$24.94 an hour for a full-time schedule, calculated as the $15,564 annual rent divided by 0.30 and by 2,080 hours. The median for Office Clerks, General is $17.61.
How we calculated these numbers
Wages are May 2025 medians from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for the North Region of Texas nonmetropolitan area; hourly-only values are annualized at 2,080 hours. Rents are HUD Fair Market Rents, food costs come from the USDA Thrifty Food Plan, and energy prices come from the Energy Information Administration. County-level tax statistics come from the IRS Statistics of Income.
Taxes use tax-year 2025 federal brackets, FICA rates and the Texas rules for a single filer with wage income only. Figures are estimates for planning and comparison, not tax or financial advice, and they exclude local income taxes, benefits, retirement contributions and individual circumstances.