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Straight to it: $52,000 a year, workable here with the slack most people expect taken out. Here's what actually lands in the account, and what it buys locally.
$25.00 an hour is $52,000 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare you keep $43,962, which is $3,664 a month or $1,691 every two weeks. Against Orlando prices running 1.4% above the national average, that spends like $43,355 would somewhere average.
Full time at $25.00 an hour comes to $52,000, and Orlando prices land within a whisker of the national average. So this one turns almost entirely on tax rather than geography.
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) | $52,000 |
| Federal income tax | −$4,060 |
| Social Security and Medicare | −$3,978 |
| Florida state income tax | $0 |
| Take-home pay | $43,962 |
| Take-home a month | $3,664 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $1,691 |
| Take-home a week | $845 |
| Take-home an hour | $21.14 |
| Adjusted for Orlando prices (1.4% above average) | $43,355 |
Tax takes $8,038 of that $52,000, or 15% of it. What's left is $43,962 a year, which is $3,664 a month, $1,691 every two weeks, or $845 a week.
Divided back down, that's $21.14 an hour after tax rather than $25.00. 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 Orlando scores 101.4. Living here costs you roughly $600 a year of buying power before you've bought anything, purely for buying it here.
The missing income tax more than covers the price difference here, which doesn't happen often.
Florida charges no personal income tax, worth roughly $1,700 a year at this wage against a typical taxing state.
And here it genuinely wins. What you keep in tax outweighs what local prices cost you, which is the combination people assume they're getting whenever they move somewhere tax-free and usually aren't.
A one-bedroom at Orlando's fair market rent runs $1,731 a month, $1,972 for a two-bedroom. Against take-home of $3,664 a month, the one-bedroom eats 47% 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 $1,933 a month for everything else, and that's before a car or childcare.
Orlando being 1% above average is a blended figure, and blending is exactly what you don't want here. Groceries and everyday goods run 4% below average. Housing runs 23% above it.
Which means the cost of living here is mostly the cost of being housed here. Everything else is close to ordinary.
Orlando has bounced between 98.2 and 101.6 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.
Most of that shift is recent: 3.2 points of it landed in the last five years.
Reversed, it's good news: $25.35 an hour here matches $25.00 an hour in an average-priced city.
And here's the rent version of the same sum. A one-bedroom at $1,731 a month sits at 30% of take-home only once you're earning about $41.28 an hour, which is $16.28 an hour more than you're on. Full time, that gap is $33,871 a year.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orlando, FL | 101.4 | $3,664 | $43,355 |
| Louisville, KY | 93.1 | $3,522 | $45,392 |
| Tampa, FL | 100.9 | $3,664 | $43,570 |
| Seattle, WA | 111.1 | $3,664 | $39,570 |
Your pay, your two cities, real federal price data. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Compare my citiesIt works. $25.00 an hour converts to $43,355 of real spending power in Orlando, which covers a normal month for one person without much drama.
Enough for one person renting sensibly. It starts asking hard questions the moment there's a second person who isn't earning, or a car that needs replacing.
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 $52,000 a year at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. After federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, you keep about $43,962. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $3,664 a month in Orlando, which is $1,691 on a biweekly schedule or $845 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In Orlando it comes to $43,962 of take-home against a price level of 101.4, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $43,355 somewhere average. The price premium costs you roughly $600 a year against the national average.
At the standard 30% of take-home, $1,099 a month. A one-bedroom at Orlando's fair market rent is $1,731, which is 47% of your monthly take-home, so you'd be over the line by $632 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 Florida state rates. The data vintage is shown on every page.