Loading...
The figure people want: $41,600 a year, stretched thin, though this is one of the better places to stretch it. Here's the whole calculation, tax by tax.
$20.00 an hour is $41,600 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare, and North Carolina income tax you keep $34,454, which is $2,871 a month or $1,325 every two weeks. Against Raleigh prices running 1.8% below the national average, that spends like $35,086 would somewhere average.
Full time at $20.00 an hour comes to $41,600, and Raleigh prices land within a whisker of the national average. So this one turns almost entirely on tax rather than geography.
Right. Let's do the actual math.
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) | $41,600 |
| Federal income tax | −$2,812 |
| Social Security and Medicare | −$3,182 |
| North Carolina state income tax | −$1,151 |
| Take-home pay | $34,454 |
| Take-home a month | $2,871 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $1,325 |
| Take-home a week | $663 |
| Take-home an hour | $16.56 |
| Adjusted for Raleigh prices (1.8% below average) | $35,086 |
Tax takes $7,146 of that $41,600, or 17% of it. What's left is $34,454 a year, which is $2,871 a month, $1,325 every two weeks, or $663 a week.
Divided back down, that's $16.56 an hour after tax rather than $20.00. 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 Raleigh scores 98.2. Living here hands you back roughly $600 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
Nobody gets to opt out of this one.
North Carolina takes about $1,151 a year at this wage, an effective rate of 2.8% once brackets, deductions and exemptions have all been applied. On a weekly check that's roughly $22.
That sits on top of federal tax and Social Security and Medicare, which between them explain most of the gap between the rate on your schedule and the number on your check.
A one-bedroom at Raleigh's fair market rent runs $1,596 a month, $1,750 for a two-bedroom. Against take-home of $2,871 a month, the one-bedroom eats 56% 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 $1,275 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.
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, Raleigh 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 $20.00 an hour buys nationally only takes $19.64 an hour in Raleigh.
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 $19.49 an hour more than you're on. Full time, that gap is $40,530 a year.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raleigh, NC | 98.2 | $2,871 | $35,086 |
| El Paso, TX | 89.9 | $2,967 | $39,606 |
| Austin, TX | 98.1 | $2,967 | $36,295 |
| Phoenix, AZ | 103.3 | $2,898 | $33,663 |
Your pay, your two cities, real federal price data. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Compare my citiesIt's tight. $20.00 an hour in Raleigh holds $35,086 of real purchasing power once tax and local prices have both taken their turn, so roughly $6,500 a year is gone before you buy anything.
Nearly all of that is tax rather than Raleigh. Local prices are already working for you here, which is why this reads as tight rather than worse.
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 $41,600 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 $34,454. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $2,871 a month in Raleigh, which is $1,325 on a biweekly schedule or $663 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In Raleigh it comes to $34,454 of take-home against a price level of 98.2, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $35,086 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, $861 a month. A one-bedroom at Raleigh's fair market rent is $1,596, which is 56% of your monthly take-home, so you'd be over the line by $735 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.