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Before anything else: $62,400 a year, workable here with the slack most people expect taken out. Here's what's left after tax and what rent does to it.
$30.00 an hour is $62,400 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare, and Pennsylvania income tax you keep $50,403, which is $4,200 a month or $1,939 every two weeks. Against Philadelphia prices running 2.6% above the national average, that spends like $49,125 would somewhere average.
Full time at $30.00 an hour is $62,400 before tax. Philadelphia runs 2.6% dearer than the average city, which sounds minor until it's applied to a wage rather than a salary.
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) | $62,400 |
| Federal income tax | −$5,308 |
| Social Security and Medicare | −$4,774 |
| Pennsylvania state income tax | −$1,916 |
| Take-home pay | $50,403 |
| Take-home a month | $4,200 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $1,939 |
| Take-home a week | $969 |
| Take-home an hour | $24.23 |
| Adjusted for Philadelphia prices (2.6% above average) | $49,125 |
Tax takes $11,997 of that $62,400, or 19% of it. What's left is $50,403 a year, which is $4,200 a month, $1,939 every two weeks, or $969 a week.
Divided back down, that's $24.23 an hour after tax rather than $30.00. 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 Philadelphia scores 102.6. Living here costs you roughly $1,300 a year of buying power before you've bought anything, purely for buying it here.
Nobody gets to opt out of this one.
Pennsylvania takes about $1,916 a year at this wage, an effective rate of 3.1% once brackets, deductions and exemptions have all been applied. On a weekly check that's roughly $37.
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 Philadelphia's fair market rent runs $1,520 a month, $1,810 for a two-bedroom. Against take-home of $4,200 a month, the one-bedroom eats 36% of it.
That's over the 30% line, which puts you in what housing researchers call cost-burdened. It leaves $2,680 a month for food, transport, insurance, and anything you might want to save.
The headline figure averages over things that behave differently. In Philadelphia the spread runs from utilities, 14% above the national average, down to groceries and goods at 3% 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.
Philadelphia has been on both sides of the national average. It spent 16 of the last 17 years above it, and it's above it now at 102.6.
That crossing is why Philadelphia gets described as both cheap and expensive depending on who you ask and when they last looked.
The useful version of this question is the reverse one. Matching what $30.00 an hour buys nationally takes $30.78 an hour in Philadelphia.
And here's the rent version of the same sum. A one-bedroom at $1,520 a month sits at 30% of take-home only once you're earning about $37.14 an hour, which is $7.14 an hour more than you're on. Full time, that gap is $14,844 a year.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia, PA | 102.6 | $4,200 | $49,125 |
| Cleveland, OH | 93.9 | $4,281 | $54,716 |
| Dallas, TX | 103.1 | $4,360 | $50,745 |
| Seattle, WA | 111.1 | $4,360 | $47,091 |
Your pay, your two cities, real federal price data. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Compare my citiesIt works. $30.00 an hour converts to $49,125 of real spending power in Philadelphia, 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 $62,400 a year at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. After federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, and Pennsylvania income tax, you keep about $50,403. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $4,200 a month in Philadelphia, which is $1,939 on a biweekly schedule or $969 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In Philadelphia it comes to $50,403 of take-home against a price level of 102.6, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $49,125 somewhere average. The price premium costs you roughly $1,300 a year against the national average.
At the standard 30% of take-home, $1,260 a month. A one-bedroom at Philadelphia's fair market rent is $1,520, which is 36% of your monthly take-home, so you'd be over the line by $260 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 Pennsylvania state rates. The data vintage is shown on every page.