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Put annually: $62,400 a year before tax, and it's a living rather than a cushion. Here's the full breakdown, per hour, per week, per month.
$30.00 an hour is $62,400 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare, and Arizona income tax you keep $50,967, which is $4,247 a month or $1,960 every two weeks. Against Phoenix prices running 3.3% above the national average, that spends like $49,339 would somewhere average.
$62,400 a year, which is what $30.00 an hour comes to, against a city that costs 3.3% more than average. Here's how those two numbers meet.
So let's run the whole thing.
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 |
| Arizona state income tax | −$1,351 |
| Take-home pay | $50,967 |
| Take-home a month | $4,247 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $1,960 |
| Take-home a week | $980 |
| Take-home an hour | $24.50 |
| Adjusted for Phoenix prices (3.3% above average) | $49,339 |
Tax takes $11,433 of that $62,400, or 18% of it. What's left is $50,967 a year, which is $4,247 a month, $1,960 every two weeks, or $980 a week.
So the honest hourly figure is $24.50, not $30.00. Every hour you work is worth that much to your bank account, not what's printed on the schedule.
That last row is the one nobody shows you. The federal government scores every metro against a national average of 100, and Phoenix scores 103.3. Living here costs you roughly $1,600 a year of buying power before you've bought anything, purely for buying it here.
This is the deduction that catches people who moved for the higher rate.
Arizona takes about $1,351 a year at this wage, an effective rate of 2.2% once brackets, deductions and exemptions have all been applied. On a weekly check that's roughly $26.
Add federal and the payroll taxes and you have the whole reason the check never matches the hours times the rate.
A one-bedroom at Phoenix's fair market rent runs $1,583 a month, $1,839 for a two-bedroom. Against take-home of $4,247 a month, the one-bedroom eats 37% of it.
That's over the 30% line, which puts you in what housing researchers call cost-burdened. It leaves $2,664 a month for food, transport, insurance, and anything you might want to save.
Phoenix being 3% above average is a blended figure, and blending is exactly what you don't want here. Groceries and everyday goods run 5% below average. Housing runs 21% above it.
That's a very different problem from "everything is expensive." One line on your budget absorbs almost the whole difference, and it's the one you can't opt out of.
Phoenix has been on both sides of the national average. It spent 9 of the last 17 years above it, and it's above it now at 103.3.
Cities that hover near the average are the ones where general advice is least useful. A few index points either way changes the answer, and Phoenix has moved a few index points repeatedly.
Worth noting that the recent direction is the opposite one. It has gained 3.3 points in the last five years, so the longer trend is not the one you'd be moving into.
Flip it: $30.99 an hour here puts you where $30.00 an hour puts someone in an average-priced city.
And here's the rent version of the same sum. A one-bedroom at $1,583 a month sits at 30% of take-home only once you're earning about $38.46 an hour, which is $8.46 an hour more than you're on. Full time, that gap is $17,602 a year.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenix, AZ | 103.3 | $4,247 | $49,339 |
| St. Louis, MO | 95.1 | $4,194 | $52,916 |
| 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 $49,339 of real spending power in Phoenix, which covers a normal month for one person without much drama.
It'll pay rent, food and a car, and it won't build much of a cushion behind them. Both of those are true at once.
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 Arizona income tax, you keep about $50,967. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $4,247 a month in Phoenix, which is $1,960 on a biweekly schedule or $980 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In Phoenix it comes to $50,967 of take-home against a price level of 103.3, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $49,339 somewhere average. The price premium costs you roughly $1,600 a year against the national average.
At the standard 30% of take-home, $1,274 a month. A one-bedroom at Phoenix's fair market rent is $1,583, which is 37% of your monthly take-home, so you'd be over the line by $309 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 Arizona state rates. The data vintage is shown on every page.