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Straight to it: $58,240 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.
$28.00 an hour is $58,240 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare, and Colorado income tax you keep $47,122, which is $3,927 a month or $1,812 every two weeks. Against Denver prices running 5.8% above the national average, that spends like $44,538 would somewhere average.
Full time at $28.00 an hour is $58,240 before tax. Denver runs 5.8% dearer than the average city, which sounds minor until it's applied to a wage rather than a salary.
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) | $58,240 |
| Federal income tax | −$4,809 |
| Social Security and Medicare | −$4,455 |
| Colorado state income tax | −$1,854 |
| Take-home pay | $47,122 |
| Take-home a month | $3,927 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $1,812 |
| Take-home a week | $906 |
| Take-home an hour | $22.65 |
| Adjusted for Denver prices (5.8% above average) | $44,538 |
Tax takes $11,118 of that $58,240, or 19% of it. What's left is $47,122 a year, which is $3,927 a month, $1,812 every two weeks, or $906 a week.
Divided back down, that's $22.65 an hour after tax rather than $28.00. 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 Denver scores 105.8. Living here costs you roughly $2,600 a year of buying power before you've bought anything, purely for buying it here.
Nobody gets to opt out of this one.
Colorado takes about $1,854 a year at this wage, an effective rate of 3.2% once brackets, deductions and exemptions have all been applied. On a weekly check that's roughly $36.
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 Denver's fair market rent runs $1,754 a month, $2,089 for a two-bedroom. Against take-home of $3,927 a month, the one-bedroom eats 45% of it.
That's over the 30% line, which puts you in what housing researchers call cost-burdened. It leaves $2,173 a month for food, transport, insurance, and anything you might want to save.
Denver being 6% above average is a blended figure, and blending is exactly what you don't want here. Groceries and everyday goods run 1% above average. Housing runs 47% above it.
Which means the cost of living here is mostly the cost of being housed here. Everything else is close to ordinary.
Denver peaked in 2020 at 109.4 and has been coming back down since. It now sits 3.6 index points below that high.
So the received wisdom about Denver is running a few years behind the data. The city is cheaper, relative to the rest of the country, than its reputation.
And it has not dipped below the national average once in that entire stretch.
The useful version of this question is the reverse one. Matching what $28.00 an hour buys nationally takes $29.62 an hour in Denver.
And here's the rent version of the same sum. A one-bedroom at $1,754 a month sits at 30% of take-home only once you're earning about $44.19 an hour, which is $16.19 an hour more than you're on. Full time, that gap is $33,681 a year.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denver, CO | 105.8 | $3,927 | $44,538 |
| Charlotte, NC | 97.3 | $3,930 | $48,469 |
| Chicago, IL | 103.6 | $3,853 | $44,631 |
| Seattle, WA | 111.1 | $4,081 | $44,083 |
Your pay, your two cities, real federal price data. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Compare my citiesIt works. $28.00 an hour converts to $44,538 of real spending power in Denver, 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 $58,240 a year at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. After federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, and Colorado income tax, you keep about $47,122. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $3,927 a month in Denver, which is $1,812 on a biweekly schedule or $906 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In Denver it comes to $47,122 of take-home against a price level of 105.8, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $44,538 somewhere average. The price premium costs you roughly $2,600 a year against the national average.
At the standard 30% of take-home, $1,178 a month. A one-bedroom at Denver's fair market rent is $1,754, which is 45% of your monthly take-home, so you'd be over the line by $576 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 Colorado state rates. The data vintage is shown on every page.