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In round numbers: $33,280 a year, which is a stretch here despite this being one of the cheaper places to try it. Here's what's left after tax and what rent does to it.
$16.00 an hour is $33,280 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare you keep $28,920, which is $2,410 a month or $1,112 every two weeks. Against Memphis prices running 7.8% below the national average, that spends like $31,367 would somewhere average.
Most cost-of-living coverage is about expensive cities. Memphis is the other case, 7.8% below average, which changes what $16.00 an hour means here.
Which is what the rest of this page works 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) | $33,280 |
| Federal income tax | −$1,814 |
| Social Security and Medicare | −$2,546 |
| Tennessee state income tax | $0 |
| Take-home pay | $28,920 |
| Take-home a month | $2,410 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $1,112 |
| Take-home a week | $556 |
| Take-home an hour | $13.90 |
| Adjusted for Memphis prices (7.8% below average) | $31,367 |
Tax takes $4,360 of that $33,280, or 13% of it. What's left is $28,920 a year, which is $2,410 a month, $1,112 every two weeks, or $556 a week.
Divided back down, that's $13.90 an hour after tax rather than $16.00. Worth knowing before you agree to overtime, because the take-home rate is the one that pays your bills.
That last row is the one nobody shows you. The federal government scores every metro against a national average of 100, and Memphis scores 92.2. Living here hands you back roughly $2,400 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
Tennessee's zero income tax is real money. It just isn't enough money.
Tennessee charges no personal income tax, worth roughly $900 a year at this wage compared with a typical taxing state.
That's real, and it doesn't cancel the cost of living out. The price premium costs you more than the tax break saves you, by about 2.7 to one.
A one-bedroom at Memphis's fair market rent runs $1,154 a month, $1,274 for a two-bedroom. Against take-home of $2,410 a month, the one-bedroom eats 48% 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 $1,256 a month for everything else, and that's before a car or childcare.
The cheapness here is concentrated where it counts. Housing in Memphis runs 20% below the national average, against goods at 4% below.
Housing is the biggest line in most budgets, so a discount there is worth more than the headline figure suggests. This is the kind of place where a middling salary buys space.
Utilities are a genuine bright spot, running 26% below the national average.
Memphis peaked in 2016 at 95.2 and has been coming back down since. It now sits 3 index points below that high.
So the received wisdom about Memphis is running a few years behind the data. The city is cheaper, relative to the rest of the country, than its reputation.
For what it's worth, Memphis has not been more expensive than the national average in a single year of this series.
Reversed, it's good news: $14.75 an hour here matches $16.00 an hour in an average-priced city.
And here's the rent version of the same sum. A one-bedroom at $1,154 a month sits at 30% of take-home only once you're earning about $26.32 an hour, which is $10.32 an hour more than you're on. Full time, that gap is $21,456 a year.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Memphis, TN | 92.2 | $2,410 | $31,367 |
| Oklahoma City, OK | 90.4 | $2,331 | $30,938 |
| Kansas City, MO | 92.5 | $2,358 | $30,588 |
| Charlotte, NC | 97.3 | $2,342 | $28,881 |
Your pay, your two cities, real federal price data. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Compare my citiesHonestly, it's a stretch. $16.00 an hour leaves $31,367 of real purchasing power in Memphis, and almost all of the shortfall is tax rather than the city.
It's doable with roommates or a second earner. On its own, against a full-time schedule, it doesn't leave a margin for the month going wrong.
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 $33,280 a year at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. After federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, you keep about $28,920. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $2,410 a month in Memphis, which is $1,112 on a biweekly schedule or $556 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In Memphis it comes to $28,920 of take-home against a price level of 92.2, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $31,367 somewhere average. Local prices hand you back roughly $2,400 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
At the standard 30% of take-home, $723 a month. A one-bedroom at Memphis's fair market rent is $1,154, which is 48% of your monthly take-home, so you'd be over the line by $431 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 Tennessee state rates. The data vintage is shown on every page.