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Straight to it: $83,200 a year before tax, and it holds up here. Here's the whole calculation, tax by tax.
$40.00 an hour is $83,200 a year gross at 40 hours a week. After federal tax, Social Security and Medicare you keep $67,361, which is $5,613 a month or $2,591 every two weeks. Against Orlando prices running 1.4% above the national average, that spends like $66,431 would somewhere average.
Orlando is close enough to the national average on prices that the answer here comes down to what the tax code takes. $40.00 an hour is $83,200 a year before it does.
Right. Let's do the actual math.
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) | $83,200 |
| Federal income tax | −$9,474 |
| Social Security and Medicare | −$6,365 |
| Florida state income tax | $0 |
| Take-home pay | $67,361 |
| Take-home a month | $5,613 |
| Take-home every two weeks | $2,591 |
| Take-home a week | $1,295 |
| Take-home an hour | $32.39 |
| Adjusted for Orlando prices (1.4% above average) | $66,431 |
Tax takes $15,839 of that $83,200, or 19% of it. What's left is $67,361 a year, which is $5,613 a month, $2,591 every two weeks, or $1,295 a week.
So the honest hourly figure is $32.39, not $40.00. 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 Orlando scores 101.4. Living here costs you roughly $900 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 $3,300 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 $5,613 a month, the one-bedroom eats 31% of it.
That lands right on the 30% rule, the traditional line for affordable. It works, and it leaves $3,882 a month for everything else, which is enough but not generous.
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.
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.
Orlando has bounced between 98.2 and 101.6 over 2008 to 2024 without settling into a direction.
Which is a reminder that this index moves. A figure quoted confidently from any single year, including this one, is a snapshot rather than a trend.
Most of that shift is recent: 3.2 points of it landed in the last five years.
Turn it around and it runs in your favour. Matching what $40.00 an hour buys nationally only takes $40.56 an hour in Orlando.
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 $1.28 an hour more than you're on. Full time, that gap is $2,671 a year.
| Metro | Price level100 = US avg | Take-home a month | Real value a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orlando, FL | 101.4 | $5,613 | $66,431 |
| Louisville, KY | 93.1 | $5,381 | $69,352 |
| Tampa, FL | 100.9 | $5,613 | $66,760 |
| Seattle, WA | 111.1 | $5,613 | $60,631 |
Your pay, your two cities, real federal price data. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Compare my citiesYes, with room. After tax and Orlando prices you're holding $66,431 of real purchasing power, which is above what most hourly work in this country pays.
Orlando still costs you about $900 a year against the national average. At this wage that's a drag rather than a wall.
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 $83,200 a year at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. After federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, you keep about $67,361. That's a single filer taking the standard deduction under 2026 rates.
About $5,613 a month in Orlando, which is $2,591 on a biweekly schedule or $1,295 a week. Your actual check depends on hours worked, benefit deductions and what you claimed on your W-4.
In Orlando it comes to $67,361 of take-home against a price level of 101.4, where 100 is the national average. That's the same buying power as $66,431 somewhere average. The price premium costs you roughly $900 a year against the national average.
At the standard 30% of take-home, $1,684 a month. A one-bedroom at Orlando's fair market rent is $1,731, which is 31% of your monthly take-home, so you'd be over the line by $47 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.