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Put annually: $52,000 gross, which covers the month without covering much else. Here's what's left after tax and what rent does to it.
$25.00 an hour is $52,000 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare, and Missouri income tax you keep $42,455, which is $3,538 a month or $1,633 every two weeks. Against St. Louis prices running 4.9% below the national average, that spends like $44,643 would somewhere average.
$25.00 an hour is $52,000 a year, and St. Louis runs 4.9% under the national average on prices. That gap doesn't get talked about much and it's felt every month.
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) | $52,000 |
| Federal income tax | −$4,060 |
| Social Security and Medicare | −$3,978 |
| Missouri state income tax | −$1,507 |
| Take-home pay | $42,455 |
| Take-home a month | $3,538 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $1,633 |
| Take-home a week | $816 |
| Take-home an hour | $20.41 |
| Adjusted for St. Louis prices (4.9% below average) | $44,643 |
Tax takes $9,545 of that $52,000, or 18% of it. What's left is $42,455 a year, which is $3,538 a month, $1,633 every two weeks, or $816 a week.
Put another way, your $25.00 an hour is really $20.41 an hour once withholding is done. That's the number to use when you're deciding whether an extra shift is worth it.
That last row is the one nobody shows you. The federal government scores every metro against a national average of 100, and St. Louis scores 95.1. Living here hands you back roughly $2,200 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
State tax is the line people forget until the first check lands.
Missouri takes about $1,507 a year at this wage, an effective rate of 2.9% once brackets, deductions and exemptions have all been applied. On a weekly check that's roughly $29.
Federal tax and FICA come off the same money, which is why multiplying hours by your rate always overshoots what arrives.
A one-bedroom at St. Louis's fair market rent runs $995 a month, $1,218 for a two-bedroom. Against take-home of $3,538 a month, the one-bedroom eats 28% of it.
That lands right on the 30% rule, the traditional line for affordable. It works, and it leaves $2,543 a month for everything else, which is enough but not generous.
The cheapness here is concentrated where it counts. Housing in St. Louis runs 21% below the national average, against goods at 0% above.
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 30% below the national average.
St. Louis has bounced between 91 and 97 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, St. Louis has not been more expensive than the national average in a single year of this series.
Reversed, it's good news: $23.77 an hour here matches $25.00 an hour in an average-priced city.
And rent already works at this wage. A one-bedroom at $995 a month hits the 30% line at about $23.31 an hour, which you're already past.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. Louis, MO | 95.1 | $3,538 | $44,643 |
| Oklahoma City, OK | 90.4 | $3,514 | $46,645 |
| San Antonio, TX | 94.7 | $3,664 | $46,422 |
| Atlanta, GA | 100.1 | $3,510 | $42,074 |
Your pay, your two cities, real federal price data. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Compare my citiesIt works. $25.00 an hour converts to $44,643 of real spending power in St. Louis, which covers a normal month for one person without much drama.
Fine for one, workable for two if both of you earn, and thin the moment anything unplanned lands.
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, and Missouri income tax, you keep about $42,455. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $3,538 a month in St. Louis, which is $1,633 on a biweekly schedule or $816 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In St. Louis it comes to $42,455 of take-home against a price level of 95.1, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $44,643 somewhere average. Local prices hand you back roughly $2,200 a year of buying power you wouldn't have somewhere average.
At the standard 30% of take-home, $1,061 a month. A one-bedroom at St. Louis's fair market rent is $995, which is 28% of your monthly take-home, so that clears the line. 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 Missouri state rates. The data vintage is shown on every page.