Your real US tax rate: four honest answers for one payslip
By Skyler Bissell · August 8, 2026 · 8 min read
A single filer on $150,000 in San Francisco hands the IRS $22,574 in federal income tax, which is 15.0% of gross pay. The same person, the same year, the same payslip, can also be described as paying 32.4%. Both figures are arithmetic, both are defensible, and the 32.4% is more than double the 15.0%.
That is why the question has no answer until someone says which levies they are counting. Arguments about American tax rates almost always turn out to be arguments about the boundary of the word, with one side counting federal income tax and the other counting everything that leaves the account before rent. Below is the same person costed four ways, and then the same exercise across every US metro we price, so you can see which layers move and which sit still.
Three rates, three meanings. Your marginal rate is what the next dollar costs, which at this salary is the 24% federal bracket. Your effective rate is total tax over gross pay, the figure everything below builds toward. The all-in rate adds annual household health spending to the tax total and divides by the same gross, which is a display basis we use so systems that fund care differently can be read on one line. It is never used in a take-home number or an equivalence, because health spending is a cost and calling it a tax would misstate every net figure on the site.
TL;DR
- One salary, four answers, and the widest is more than twice the narrowest. Which one is right depends entirely on the decision you are making. The ladder.
- Federal income tax is an identical share of gross in every US metro we price, so the whole geographic spread lives in one layer. The layer that moves.
- Having children pushes your tax rate down and your all-in rate up, at the same time, on the same income. Why the two diverge.
The four answers, on one $150,000 payslip
The household here is the one our default comparison pages use: one earner on $150,000, no partner, no children, renting a 2-bedroom, putting 6% into a 401(k). Each row adds one layer to the row above it, so the last column is cumulative rather than standalone.
| What you count | San Francisco | Austin |
|---|---|---|
| Federal income tax only | 15.0% | 15.0% |
| Plus payroll (FICA and state wage levies) | 24.0% | 22.7% |
| Plus state and city income tax | 29.4% | 22.7% |
| Plus household health spending | 32.4% | 25.3% |
Engine figures for a single filer on USD 150,000 with a 6% 401(k), 2026 rates. In dollars, San Francisco is $22,574 federal, $13,425 payroll, $8,054 state and $4,490 of health spending; Austin is $22,574, $11,475, $0 and $3,844.
Two things fall out of that table immediately. The first is that the payroll step is bigger than most people expect and is charged before any deduction: Social Security at 6.2% up to a wage base of $184,500 in 2026, Medicare at 1.45% with no ceiling at all, and a 0.9% Additional Medicare surtax above $200,000 for a single filer. None of it is reduced by a 401(k) deferral or the standard deduction, which is why the payroll line barely notices decisions that move the income tax line a lot.
The second is that San Francisco and Austin are separated by $8,054 and almost nothing else. The federal columns are identical to the decimal. The payroll columns differ only because California charges 1.3% of every dollar for state disability insurance and Texas charges nothing, which is a rounding-scale difference against the state income tax itself.
Only one layer moves when you move
Run all 28 US metros in the engine at this salary and federal income tax comes back as 15.0% of gross in every single one, because there is one federal code and one standard deduction. So every dollar of geographic variation an American tax argument produces is coming from a layer that most national commentary treats as a footnote. Here is the spread, with each row naming its own city:
- New York, NY: $12,146 of combined state and city income tax on $150,000, an effective rate of 31.1% and take-home of $103,393. The steepest of the 28.
- Portland, OR: $10,610 of state and local income tax, an effective rate of 30.4%. No sales tax anywhere in Oregon, which is the trade the rate is buying.
- San Francisco, CA: $8,054 of California income tax, 29.4% effective. Identical in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, because California taxes the resident and no California city taxes wages.
- Chicago, IL: $6,183 to Illinois, which charges one flat rate rather than a bracket ladder, for 26.8% effective. A flat state keeps its share roughly steady as pay climbs, where California's does not.
- Phoenix, AZ: $3,123, another flat state, at 24.8% effective. The lightest state layer among the metros that charge one at all, and about a quarter of New York's.
- Seattle, WA: $0 of income tax and $2,081 of state wage levies, for 24.1% effective. Washington bills you without taxing your income.
- Austin, TX: $0 of state levies of any kind, 22.7% effective and $115,951 of take-home. Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Miami, Tampa, Nashville and Las Vegas all land on the same figure.
New York to Austin is $12,558 of take-home on the same gross, which is the largest gap the United States can produce at this income without changing anything about the job. Seattle is the row worth staring at, because it breaks the shorthand everybody uses. Washington has no income tax and still takes $2,081 a year through the WA Cares long-term-care premium at 0.58% of gross and the employee share of Paid Family and Medical Leave. A no-income-tax state is not a no-state-levy state, and the two Texas-versus-Washington rows differ by exactly that amount. If your state is one of the sticky ones and you are weighing a move abroad rather than across a state line, the residency mechanics are in California state tax if you move abroad.
Why the health premium sits on the ladder at all
The fourth rung will look like a cheat to some readers, so here is the argument for it. A tax is compulsory, unavoidable, and funds something you do not choose. An employer health premium is nearly all of those. You cannot opt out of needing cover, the employee share is deducted from gross pay by the same payroll system that withholds FICA, and the amount is set by an insurer rather than by you. What separates it from a tax is that an insurer bills it instead of a government, which is a difference in plumbing and not in what leaves your account.
For this single filer the amount is $4,490 a year: the employee's premium share, realized cost sharing at the deductible and coinsurance level, and a routine dental and vision plan. The KFF 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey is the source for the premium half and it also gives the figure this page leaves out on purpose: the employer pays several thousand more toward the same single policy, and far more on a family one. That money is compensation spent on your behalf, and no rate on this page counts it.
Adding health to the tax line is also the move that makes American and European rates comparable, since a German or Swedish payroll deduction already contains the health contribution. That comparison runs across eight cities on a two-earner household and has its own page, the true tax burden, US against Europe. This page never leaves the United States, and uses the basis to answer a domestic question instead: what is my number.
Children push the two rates in opposite directions
Swap the single filer for the household our family comparison pages use, two earners splitting $280,000 with children aged 3 and 6, and something counterintuitive happens. The San Francisco tax rate falls, from 29.4% to 28.1%, because married filing jointly doubles every federal and California bracket threshold. The all-in rate rises, from 32.4% to 33.5%, because family health cover costs $15,104 against $4,490 for one adult.
Austin does the same thing at a lower altitude: 21.8% on tax, 26.4% all-in, with a family health bill of $12,885. So the family that gets a tax cut for having children also gets a health bill roughly three times the size, and only one of those two shows up in any rate a politician or a payroll provider will quote at you. This is the single best argument for asking which layers a number contains before you let it decide anything.
Three levies still outside every figure here
Sales tax. The Tax Foundation puts combined state and local rates above 9% in Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansas, and at zero in Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon and Alaska. It falls on spending rather than income, so it hits a saver lightly and a family at full stretch hard, which is the opposite of how income tax behaves.
Property tax. Every row above is a renter, so the engine prices no property tax at all. Buy in Texas and that changes fast, because Texas funds schools and counties from property rather than income and its effective rates sit near the top of the Census Bureau's American Community Survey tables. A Texan renter's 22.7% and a Texan homeowner's real burden are separate numbers, and the ranking of states can flip between them.
The employer side. Your employer pays a second 7.65% of FICA on your wages, plus unemployment insurance, plus the larger half of your health premium. Economists argue about how much of that lands on you as lower wages; nobody argues it costs nothing. It is spent on your employment and it is invisible on your payslip, so no rate on this page or anywhere else you will read includes it.
Which of the four to use, and when
For a raise or a bonus, none of them. Use the marginal rate, because the question is what happens to the next dollar, and the difference between marginal and effective is worked through at this exact salary in marginal vs effective tax rate. For a budget, use the effective rate, because take-home is what the rent comes out of. For comparing two US offers in different states, use the effective rate and then check the health plans separately, since two employers in the same metro can differ by thousands on the premium alone. For comparing a US offer against a foreign one, use the all-in rate, or the whole comparison silently gives the American city a five-figure head start.
Where each country lands on the tax line once you leave the United States is ranked in take-home pay by country, and the mechanics of how each system assembles its bill are in how countries tax your salary. For a worked cross-border pairing at this salary, New York against London is the one where the four-layer question changes the answer most.
FAQ
How much tax does the average American pay?
There is no single figure, because the honest answer depends on which levies are being counted. For a $150,000 single filer contributing 6% to a 401(k), federal income tax alone is 15.0% of gross. Add Social Security and Medicare and it is 24.0%. Add California income tax and it is 29.4%. Add what the household spends on health cover and it is 32.4%. In Austin the same four figures are 15.0%, 22.7%, 22.7% and 25.3%.
Is 30% a realistic effective tax rate in the US?
At $150,000 it is realistic in a high-tax state and too high almost everywhere else. Our engine puts the all-in effective rate at 31.1% in New York and 30.4% in Portland, the two steepest of the 28 US metros we price, against 22.7% in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Nashville, Tampa and Las Vegas. The 30% figure people quote is usually a marginal bracket rather than a rate paid on the whole salary.
Does the US pay less tax than Europe?
On the income tax and payroll line, usually yes. Once health spending is counted on both sides the gap narrows by roughly a quarter on a US to Germany pairing, because a European payroll deduction already contains the health contribution and an American one does not. It narrows without closing. That comparison has its own page and its own household; this page stays inside the United States.
What taxes are missing from an effective tax rate?
Three big ones. Sales tax, which the Tax Foundation puts above 9% combined in Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansas and at zero in five states. Property tax, which no renter pays directly and which Texas and New Hampshire use heavily in place of an income tax. And the employer's share of a health premium and of FICA, which is compensation spent on your behalf and never appears on your payslip. All three sit outside every rate on this page.
Next time a number gets quoted at you, ask what is inside it before you argue with it. Half the disagreements about American tax rates are two people quoting different rungs of the same ladder at each other, and the gap between the bottom rung and the top one, on the one payslip in this post, is 32.4% against 15.0%. Run your own salary and city and you will have all four of your figures in about a minute.
Sources. Federal brackets, the standard deduction and the Additional Medicare Tax: the IRS 2026 inflation adjustments. The Social Security wage base: the Social Security Administration. Premiums and worker contributions: the KFF 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey, with realized out-of-pocket spending from the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. State income tax schedules come from each state's own revenue department, and the state wage levies from the California EDD, the WA Cares Fund, the Washington Employment Security Department and New York Paid Family Leave. Combined sales tax rates: the Tax Foundation. City figures are computed by cityparity's per-city engine; per-field provenance is in data/_meta.json.
Rates and premiums move; treat the figures as current at publication. See the methodology.