Loading...
Short answer: $37,440 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.
$18.00 an hour is $37,440 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare, and North Carolina income tax you keep $31,278, which is $2,606 a month or $1,203 every two weeks. Against Raleigh prices running 1.8% below the national average, that spends like $31,851 would somewhere average.
Raleigh is close enough to the national average on prices that the answer here comes down to what the tax code takes. $18.00 an hour is $37,440 a year before it does.
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) | $37,440 |
| Federal income tax | −$2,313 |
| Social Security and Medicare | −$2,864 |
| North Carolina state income tax | −$985 |
| Take-home pay | $31,278 |
| Take-home a month | $2,606 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $1,203 |
| Take-home a week | $601 |
| Take-home an hour | $15.04 |
| Adjusted for Raleigh prices (1.8% below average) | $31,851 |
Tax takes $6,162 of that $37,440, or 16% of it. What's left is $31,278 a year, which is $2,606 a month, $1,203 every two weeks, or $601 a week.
So the honest hourly figure is $15.04, not $18.00. 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 Raleigh scores 98.2. Living here hands you back roughly $600 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
This is the deduction that catches people who moved for the higher rate.
North Carolina takes about $985 a year at this wage, an effective rate of 2.6% once brackets, deductions and exemptions have all been applied. On a weekly check that's roughly $19.
Add federal and the payroll taxes and you have the whole reason the check never matches the hours times the rate.
A one-bedroom at Raleigh's fair market rent runs $1,596 a month, $1,750 for a two-bedroom. Against take-home of $2,606 a month, the one-bedroom eats 61% 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 $1,010 a month for everything else, and that's before a car or childcare.
The headline figure averages over things that behave differently. In Raleigh the spread runs from rent and housing, 4% above the national average, down to utilities at 11% 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.
Raleigh has bounced between 95.4 and 99.3 over 2008 to 2024 without settling into a direction.
So treat the current figure as where it happens to be standing, not where it's going.
For what it's worth, Raleigh has not been more expensive than the national average in a single year of this series.
Reversed, it's good news: $17.68 an hour here matches $18.00 an hour in an average-priced city.
And here's the rent version of the same sum. A one-bedroom at $1,596 a month sits at 30% of take-home only once you're earning about $39.49 an hour, which is $21.49 an hour more than you're on. Full time, that gap is $44,690 a year.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raleigh, NC | 98.2 | $2,606 | $31,851 |
| El Paso, TX | 89.9 | $2,689 | $35,888 |
| Austin, TX | 98.1 | $2,689 | $32,888 |
| Phoenix, AZ | 103.3 | $2,628 | $30,528 |
Your pay, your two cities, real federal price data. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Compare my citiesHonestly, it's a stretch. $18.00 an hour leaves $31,851 of real purchasing power in Raleigh, 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 $37,440 a year at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. After federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, and North Carolina income tax, you keep about $31,278. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $2,606 a month in Raleigh, which is $1,203 on a biweekly schedule or $601 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In Raleigh it comes to $31,278 of take-home against a price level of 98.2, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $31,851 somewhere average. Local prices hand you back roughly $600 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
At the standard 30% of take-home, $782 a month. A one-bedroom at Raleigh's fair market rent is $1,596, which is 61% of your monthly take-home, so you'd be over the line by $814 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 North Carolina state rates. The data vintage is shown on every page.