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The figure people want: $31,200 gross, and rent alone is going to be the argument, cheap city or not. Here's the full breakdown, per hour, per week, per month.
$15.00 an hour is $31,200 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare, and Wisconsin income tax you keep $26,599, which is $2,217 a month or $1,023 every two weeks. Against Madison prices running 2.7% below the national average, that spends like $27,337 would somewhere average.
$15.00 an hour is $31,200 a year, and Madison runs 2.7% under the national average on prices. That gap doesn't get talked about much and it's felt every month.
So let's run the whole thing.
Everything here assumes 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, which is 2,080 hours a year with no unpaid time off. If your hours get cut, or the schedule dips in a slow month, scale it down from here. Single filer, standard deduction, 2026 brackets.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Gross pay (2,080 hours) | $31,200 |
| Federal income tax | −$1,564 |
| Social Security and Medicare | −$2,387 |
| Wisconsin state income tax | −$650 |
| Take-home pay | $26,599 |
| Take-home a month | $2,217 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $1,023 |
| Take-home a week | $512 |
| Take-home an hour | $12.79 |
| Adjusted for Madison prices (2.7% below average) | $27,337 |
Tax takes $4,601 of that $31,200, or 15% of it. What's left is $26,599 a year, which is $2,217 a month, $1,023 every two weeks, or $512 a week.
Put another way, your $15.00 an hour is really $12.79 an hour once withholding is done. That's the number to use when you're deciding whether an extra shift is worth it.
That last row is the one nobody shows you. The federal government scores every metro against a national average of 100, and Madison scores 97.3. Living here hands you back roughly $700 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
State tax is the line people forget until the first check lands.
Wisconsin takes about $650 a year at this wage, an effective rate of 2.1% once brackets, deductions and exemptions have all been applied. On a weekly check that's roughly $13.
Federal tax and FICA come off the same money, which is why multiplying hours by your rate always overshoots what arrives.
A one-bedroom at Madison's fair market rent runs $1,482 a month, $1,694 for a two-bedroom. Against take-home of $2,217 a month, the one-bedroom eats 67% of it.
That's more than 45% of your take-home going to rent alone, which is severely cost-burdened by any standard definition. It leaves $735 a month for everything else, and that's before a car or childcare.
Madison is unusually even. Housing, goods, utilities and services all sit within a few points of each other, so there's no single line that ambushes you.
That makes it easy to plan for. Whatever the headline figure says, it applies fairly evenly across what you actually buy.
Madison has bounced between 95.5 and 98.7 over 2008 to 2024 without settling into a direction.
Which is a reminder that this index moves. A figure quoted confidently from any single year, including this one, is a snapshot rather than a trend.
For what it's worth, Madison has not been more expensive than the national average in a single year of this series.
Turn it around and it runs in your favour. Matching what $15.00 an hour buys nationally only takes $14.59 an hour in Madison.
And here's the rent version of the same sum. A one-bedroom at $1,482 a month sits at 30% of take-home only once you're earning about $36.53 an hour, which is $21.53 an hour more than you're on. Full time, that gap is $44,780 a year.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Madison, WI | 97.3 | $2,217 | $27,337 |
| Tulsa, OK | 89.2 | $2,199 | $29,586 |
| Charlotte, NC | 97.3 | $2,209 | $27,249 |
| Philadelphia, PA | 102.6 | $2,191 | $25,625 |
Your pay, your two cities, real federal price data. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Compare my citiesHonestly, it's a stretch. $15.00 an hour leaves $27,337 of real purchasing power in Madison, and almost all of the shortfall is tax rather than the city.
You can live on it. There isn't slack in it, and the rent figures further up are the reason.
Send the whole thing to your inbox so you can come back to it, or forward it to whoever you're deciding this with. We'll also tell you in January when the 2027 tax brackets and federal price data land and every number here changes.
The breakdown, then about one email a year. No sales pitch, unsubscribe any time.Gross, it's $31,200 a year at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. After federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, and Wisconsin income tax, you keep about $26,599. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $2,217 a month in Madison, which is $1,023 on a biweekly schedule or $512 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In Madison it comes to $26,599 of take-home against a price level of 97.3, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $27,337 somewhere average. Local prices hand you back roughly $700 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
At the standard 30% of take-home, $665 a month. A one-bedroom at Madison's fair market rent is $1,482, which is 67% of your monthly take-home, so you'd be over the line by $817 a month. Fair market rent is HUD's 40th-percentile figure including utilities, so it reads as the realistic floor rather than a typical listing.
Price levels are Regional Price Parities from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the federal government's official measure of geographic price differences. Rent is HUD fair market rent for fiscal year 2026. Tax figures are 2026 federal brackets and Wisconsin state rates. The data vintage is shown on every page.