Same salary, 29 states: what you take home at $50k, $75k, $100k and $150k in 2026

Take the same job offer to 29 different states and the paycheck changes by thousands of dollars. On a $100,000 salary a single person keeps $79,180 in Texas, Florida or Washington and $72,032 in Oregon, a gap of $7,148 a year. At $50,000 the gap is $3,204; at $150,000 it is $12,805. But the order of the states in between is not fixed: California is one of the cheapest states for a $50,000 salary and one of the most expensive at $150,000, and Alabama does the opposite. And in nine of these states the income tax is not the only thing the state takes from your pay.

We ran four salaries through every state our calculators cover, with the same method each time, and then went back through each state’s rules to see what a plain ranking hides.

What does not change when you move

Most of what comes out of a paycheck is federal, and it is identical in every state. On $100,000, a single filer pays $13,170 of federal income tax under the 2026 brackets and $16,100 standard deduction, plus $7,650 of Social Security and Medicare: 6.2% on wages up to $184,500 and 1.45% on all of them. That is $20,820 before any state gets involved, and no move within the country changes a dollar of it.

So the whole difference between two states is the state’s own share. In the tables below, the three states at the top charge no income tax on wages, and every other row is that same figure minus the state’s tax.

Take-home pay, single filer

One W-2 job, no dependents, standard deduction, no 401(k) or other pre-tax deductions, 2026 tax year. Sorted by the $100,000 column. Each state name links to its calculator.

State	$50,000	$75,000	$100,000	$150,000
Texas	$42,355	$61,593	$79,180	$113,791
Florida	$42,355	$61,593	$79,180	$113,791
Washington	$42,355	$61,593	$79,180	$113,791
Ohio	$41,696	$60,246	$77,146	$110,382
Arizona	$41,508	$60,120	$77,083	$110,444
Louisiana	$41,241	$59,729	$76,566	$109,677
Indiana	$40,910	$59,410	$76,260	$109,396
Pennsylvania	$40,820	$59,290	$76,110	$109,186
Iowa	$41,107	$59,394	$76,032	$108,743
Kentucky	$40,723	$59,085	$75,798	$108,659
North Carolina	$40,869	$59,109	$75,699	$108,315
Missouri	$40,987	$59,059	$75,510	$107,678
Colorado	$40,863	$59,001	$75,488	$107,899
Oklahoma	$40,651	$58,763	$75,226	$107,587
Michigan	$40,481	$58,656	$75,181	$107,667
Alabama	$40,286	$58,466	$75,079	$107,768
New Jersey	$41,140	$58,997	$75,000	$106,426
South Carolina	$41,356	$58,935	$74,936	$106,942
Maryland	$40,344	$58,394	$74,794	$106,749
Wisconsin	$40,778	$58,649	$74,752	$106,482
Utah	$40,689	$58,489	$74,730	$107,116
Massachusetts	$40,175	$58,163	$74,500	$106,611
Illinois	$40,025	$58,025	$74,375	$106,511
New York	$40,252	$58,140	$74,320	$105,981
Virginia	$40,294	$58,094	$74,244	$105,980
Connecticut	$40,555	$58,118	$74,205	$105,566
California	$41,162	$58,665	$73,972	$103,933
Minnesota	$40,478	$58,016	$73,903	$104,849
Oregon	$39,151	$56,538	$72,032	$100,986

Take-home pay, married filing jointly, one earner

Same assumptions, with the whole salary earned by one spouse. A second income changes both the federal and the state figure, so treat this as the one-paycheck household case.

State	$50,000	$75,000	$100,000	$150,000
Texas	$44,395	$64,623	$84,710	$123,185
Florida	$44,395	$64,623	$84,710	$123,185
Washington	$44,395	$64,623	$84,710	$123,185
Arizona	$43,950	$63,553	$83,015	$120,240
Ohio	$43,736	$63,276	$82,676	$119,776
Louisiana	$43,668	$63,145	$82,483	$119,458
California	$43,845	$63,351	$82,325	$117,330
Iowa	$43,799	$63,076	$82,214	$118,789
New Jersey	$43,625	$63,223	$82,071	$117,783
Indiana	$42,979	$62,469	$81,819	$118,819
Missouri	$43,760	$62,824	$81,758	$117,829
South Carolina	$43,997	$63,244	$81,745	$116,904
North Carolina	$43,417	$62,647	$81,737	$118,217
Colorado	$43,612	$62,739	$81,727	$118,002
Pennsylvania	$42,860	$62,320	$81,640	$118,580
Utah	$43,938	$62,728	$81,378	$116,978
Kentucky	$42,763	$62,115	$81,328	$118,053
Oklahoma	$43,236	$62,339	$81,301	$117,526
Michigan	$42,772	$61,937	$80,962	$117,312
Wisconsin	$43,393	$62,302	$80,915	$116,215
Connecticut	$43,749	$62,035	$80,790	$115,935
Minnesota	$43,357	$62,247	$80,697	$115,772
Maryland	$42,695	$61,735	$80,635	$116,735
Alabama	$42,464	$61,585	$80,572	$116,932
New York	$42,894	$61,772	$80,509	$116,284
Virginia	$42,891	$61,681	$80,331	$115,931
Massachusetts	$42,435	$61,413	$80,250	$116,225
Illinois	$42,210	$61,200	$80,050	$116,050
Oregon	$41,849	$60,139	$78,302	$112,499

What we found

The middle of the table is tighter than the ends. At $100,000, ten states sit within $1,200 of each other, from Indiana ($76,260) to Alabama ($75,079). Choosing between two of them on income tax alone is choosing over about $23 a week at most. The real money is at the edges: the three no-tax states at the top, and Oregon, Minnesota and California at the bottom.

California is cheap at $50,000 and expensive at $150,000. Its brackets start very low and climb steeply, so the state tax on a $50,000 salary is only $1,193, the eighth-best take-home of the 29. At $100,000 the tax is $5,208 and California is 27th; at $150,000 it is $9,858 and only Oregon takes more. New Jersey follows the same path for the same reason, from 9th at $50,000 to 23rd at $150,000.

Flat taxes with small deductions are hardest on modest salaries. Illinois taxes $50,000 more heavily than any state here except Oregon ($2,330), because its 4.95% applies after an exemption of only $2,925. Pennsylvania has no deduction at all, so its 3.07% applies to the first dollar. Both climb the ranking as pay rises: Pennsylvania goes from 15th at $50,000 to 8th at $100,000, Illinois from 28th at $50,000 to 21st at $150,000. Massachusetts, Kentucky and Indiana move the same way.

Deductions that fade out pull states the other way. South Carolina’s new deduction is $15,000 at a $40,000 income and zero at $95,000, so the state is 6th at $50,000 and 18th at $100,000. Connecticut withdraws its exemption between $30,000 and $44,000 and then takes back the benefit of its lowest bracket, and slides from 20th to 26th.

Alabama rewards a higher salary, by accident of design. It is one of very few states that let you subtract your federal income tax before working out the state’s. The more federal tax you pay, the bigger that subtraction, so Alabama is 25th at $50,000 and 13th at $150,000.

In three states marriage changes nothing. Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky charge a one-earner couple exactly the same state tax as a single person on the same salary: Ohio and Kentucky use one schedule and one deduction for everybody, and Pennsylvania has no deduction to double. In most other states the joint return roughly doubles the deduction and the brackets. California’s joint brackets are so wide that a one-earner couple on $75,000 pays $1,271 and ranks 5th.

Oregon is last at every salary, single or married. A typical salary reaches its 8.75% bracket almost immediately, and the state tax on $100,000 is $7,148, about 7.1% of gross pay.

What the ranking leaves out

A table like this compares income tax. It does not compare paychecks, because several states take money from wages under another name, and several more let counties or cities tax the same income. Our calculators disclose these on each state page but do not deduct them, since some depend on where you live or on what your employer chooses to cover. Here is what they do to the $100,000 single figure.

State programs withheld from pay

State	Calculator figure	Also withheld in 2026	A year, on $100,000	What is left
Washington	$79,180	Paid leave, 0.81% employee share, and WA Cares, 0.58%	$1,387	$77,793
California	$73,972	SDI, 1.3% of all wages	$1,300	$72,672
Oregon	$72,032	Transit tax, 0.1%, and Paid Leave Oregon, 0.6%	$700	$71,332
New Jersey	$75,000	Disability 0.19%, family leave 0.23%, and unemployment 0.425% on the first $44,800	$610	$74,390
Connecticut	$74,205	CT Paid Leave, 0.5%	$500	$73,705
Massachusetts	$74,500	PFML, up to 0.46%	up to $460	$74,040
Colorado	$75,488	FAMLI, up to 0.44%	up to $440	$75,048
Minnesota	$73,903	Paid Leave, new in 2026, up to 0.44%	up to $440	$73,463
New York	$74,320	Paid Family Leave, 0.432%, capped at $411.91	$412	$73,908

“Up to” means the employer may pay part or all of the worker’s share, so check a pay stub.

Washington is the one to notice. It has no income tax, and it is tied for first in every table above. But $1,387 leaves a $100,000 Washington paycheck for two state programs that Texas and Florida do not have, which cuts its lead over Arizona from $2,097 to $710. Washington still comes out ahead of every state with an income tax; it is just not the same as Texas.

Local income taxes

Where	State figure	Local tax	A year, on $100,000	What is left
New York City	$74,320	City income tax, in our NYC calculator	$3,441	$70,879
Maryland, most counties and Baltimore	$74,794	3.20% county tax on Maryland taxable income	$2,990	$71,803
Louisville, Kentucky	$75,798	2.2% of gross for residents (1.45% city, 0.75% schools)	$2,200	$73,598
Indianapolis, Indiana	$76,260	2.02% Marion County tax	$2,000	$74,260
Kansas City or St. Louis, Missouri	$75,510	1% earnings tax	$1,000	$74,510
Birmingham, Alabama	$75,079	1% occupational tax on wages earned in the city	$1,000	$74,079
Cedar Rapids, Iowa	$76,032	School district surtax, 5% of the state tax	$157	$75,874

This is where the ranking changes most. Maryland looks like a middle-of-the-table state at 19th, but every Maryland resident pays a county tax, and at the 3.20% that Baltimore, Montgomery, Prince George’s and Howard charge, the $100,000 salary leaves $71,803. That is less than the headline figure for Oregon, the last state in the table. Indiana is 7th on state tax alone; in Indianapolis it lands just below Massachusetts. Kentucky drops from 10th to below every headline figure except Oregon’s for someone living in Louisville.

Three more states have local taxes we have not put a number on, because the rate depends entirely on the town. Most Ohio cities tax wages, broadly between 0.5% and 3%, which at the upper end is more than Ohio’s own 2.75% state tax. Almost every Pennsylvania municipality and school district has an earned income tax, and Philadelphia’s wage tax is several times the usual rate. In Michigan, 24 cities tax income; Detroit charges residents 2.4%. If you are comparing an offer in Columbus, Philadelphia or Detroit with one in Phoenix or Raleigh, where no local tax exists, the state table is not telling you the whole story.

How we got these numbers

• One engine, one set of assumptions. Every figure in the two main tables comes from the same calculation behind our calculators: gross pay, minus federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and the state’s income tax for the 2026 tax year. One W-2 job, no dependents, the standard deduction, no pre-tax deductions. The “what is left” columns are that figure minus the rate shown, worked out by us from the linked source.
• Tax owed, not tax withheld. These are full-year liabilities. Several states withhold on a formula that differs from the tax itself, so individual paychecks can be a little higher or lower and the difference settles at filing. We wrote up the largest case in South Carolina’s 2026 withholding.
• California uses 2025 brackets. The Franchise Tax Board had not published its 2026 schedule when we checked. The 2026 brackets will be indexed for inflation, so the real California figures should be slightly better than the ones shown.
• Rules that the calculators apply. The fading deductions and exemptions of Wisconsin, Maryland, South Carolina and Connecticut, the federal tax subtractions of Alabama, Missouri and Oregon, and the credits of Utah, Iowa, Oregon and Connecticut are all in these numbers.
• What is not in them. Property tax, sales tax, housing and everything else that makes up the cost of living. A state can be first in this table and still be the more expensive place to live. This is a comparison of what reaches your bank account, not of how far it goes.
• 29 states, not 50. These are the states where we have checked every rate, bracket and deduction against the state’s own publications. We add a state only when its figures verify cleanly.

Using this for a real decision

If you are weighing two offers, do not compare the salaries; compare the take-home. A single person offered $100,000 in Texas keeps $79,180; to keep the same in Oregon the offer has to be about $112,000 ($79,161). Start with the state calculators, which take any salary and filing status: Texas, California, New York, Washington, Oregon, and the rest are linked in the tables above. Then add the local tax for the county or city you would actually live in, and look at a pay stub or the offer letter to see whether the employer covers the paid-leave premium. Those two lines move the answer more often than the state income tax rate does.