What your hourly wage is actually worth, city by city

An hourly rate turns into a very different amount of money depending on where you work it. These pages run the whole calculation: the annual figure, federal tax, Social Security and Medicare, state tax, what lands each month and each paycheck, and what local rent takes back out.

Start with your rate

Every rate below assumes 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, which is 2,080 hours a year. That assumption is stated on every page, and it is the ceiling rather than a promise: hours that get cut scale all of these figures down with them.

Those are gross figures. Take-home is lower everywhere, and how much lower depends on the state, so it is worked out per city rather than stated once here.

Or start with your city

426 breakdowns across 68 metros, cheapest first. The metros at the top are where an hourly wage stretches furthest, which is the opposite end of the list from where most cost-of-living coverage spends its time.