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The headline number: $31,200 a year before tax, and it's thin even where prices run below average. Here's what actually lands in the account, and what it buys locally.
$15.00 an hour is $31,200 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare you keep $27,249, which is $2,271 a month or $1,048 every two weeks. Against San Antonio prices running 5.3% below the national average, that spends like $28,774 would somewhere average.
Full time at $15.00 an hour is $31,200. In San Antonio, where prices run 5.3% below average, that money does more work than the same wage does nationally.
So here it is properly, with the tax taken out.
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 |
| Texas state income tax | $0 |
| Take-home pay | $27,249 |
| Take-home a month | $2,271 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $1,048 |
| Take-home a week | $524 |
| Take-home an hour | $13.10 |
| Adjusted for San Antonio prices (5.3% below average) | $28,774 |
Tax takes $3,951 of that $31,200, or 13% of it. What's left is $27,249 a year, which is $2,271 a month, $1,048 every two weeks, or $524 a week.
So the honest hourly figure is $13.10, not $15.00. Every hour you work is worth that much to your bank account, not what's printed on the schedule.
That last row is the one nobody shows you. The federal government scores every metro against a national average of 100, and San Antonio scores 94.7. Living here hands you back roughly $1,500 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
Texas's zero income tax is real money. It just isn't enough money.
Texas charges no personal income tax, worth roughly $800 a year at this wage compared with a typical taxing state.
It sounds like it should settle the question. It doesn't, because the price premium runs about 1.9 times larger than the saving.
A one-bedroom at San Antonio's fair market rent runs $1,177 a month, $1,426 for a two-bedroom. Against take-home of $2,271 a month, the one-bedroom eats 52% 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 $1,094 a month for everything else, and that's before a car or childcare.
The headline figure averages over things that behave differently. In San Antonio the spread runs from everything else, 4% below the national average, down to utilities at 18% below it.
Worth knowing which of those matters to you. Someone renting a small place and eating out often has a very different experience of this city than someone with a mortgage and a big grocery bill.
San Antonio peaked in 2016 at 98.3 and has been coming back down since. It now sits 3.6 index points below that high.
Relative prices coming off a peak doesn't mean anything got cheaper in dollar terms. It means the rest of the country caught up.
For what it's worth, San Antonio has not been more expensive than the national average in a single year of this series.
Reversed, it's good news: $14.21 an hour here matches $15.00 an hour in an average-priced city.
And here's the rent version of the same sum. A one-bedroom at $1,177 a month sits at 30% of take-home only once you're earning about $26.87 an hour, which is $11.87 an hour more than you're on. Full time, that gap is $24,681 a year.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Antonio, TX | 94.7 | $2,271 | $28,774 |
| Oklahoma City, OK | 90.4 | $2,199 | $29,193 |
| St. Louis, MO | 95.1 | $2,227 | $28,097 |
| Atlanta, GA | 100.1 | $2,203 | $26,414 |
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 $28,774 of real purchasing power in San Antonio, and almost all of the shortfall is tax rather than the city.
People do make this work here. They make it work by splitting rent, which is a real answer and not the same as the wage being enough.
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, you keep about $27,249. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $2,271 a month in San Antonio, which is $1,048 on a biweekly schedule or $524 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In San Antonio it comes to $27,249 of take-home against a price level of 94.7, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $28,774 somewhere average. Local prices hand you back roughly $1,500 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
At the standard 30% of take-home, $681 a month. A one-bedroom at San Antonio's fair market rent is $1,177, which is 52% of your monthly take-home, so you'd be over the line by $496 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 Texas state rates. The data vintage is shown on every page.