- The gap between two states is computed from full take-home pay, not from the difference between two headline rates.
- Comparisons are shown at six salaries because the gap widens or narrows sharply as income rises.
- Only curated pairs are published — thousands of generated permutations would answer nobody’s question.
- No-income-tax states usually raise the money through sales and property taxes, which are outside these figures.
How the comparisons work
Every comparison runs the same salary through both states’ full calculation — federal tax, state tax, and Social Security and Medicare withholding — and reports what is left. The difference column is a subtraction of those two results, not an estimate built from a rate difference.
Only pairs people actually search are published: the relocation corridors, the income-tax versus no-income-tax matchups, and the metro areas that straddle a state line so the question is which side to live on. Generating all two thousand combinations would produce thousands of near-identical URLs answering nobody’s question.
Both states in a comparison are always in the same country. A comparison across a border would need an exchange rate and a cost-of-living adjustment, and putting two currencies in one table implies a precision that does not exist.
The math
The engine behind these pages is the same one behind every take-home figure on the site. For a given salary it subtracts the federal standard deduction, applies the federal bracket schedule, applies the state’s own schedule and deduction, then subtracts Social Security up to the annual wage base and Medicare on the full amount.
Each comparison is computed at six salaries rather than one, because the gap between two states is not a fixed percentage. The Social Security wage base is a flat ceiling, so payroll tax shrinks as a share of income above it; bracket thresholds sit at very different incomes in different states, so a pair that is nearly level at one salary can diverge sharply at another.
What is not modelled: sales tax, property tax, local and city income taxes, health premiums and every deduction beyond the standard one. Those move real disposable income and vary by household — and in a no-income-tax state they are usually where the money is raised instead.
Worked example
A state with no income tax does not leave you nine per cent better off than a high-tax state, even when their top rates differ by that much. On a middle income most of the money is taxed in the lower bands, and federal tax and payroll withholding — identical in both states — dominate the total.
The same pair at a much higher salary can look completely different, because the higher-rate bands finally carry real weight. That is why every comparison here shows six salaries: one row is an anecdote, six is a shape.
Key terms
- Take-home pay
- Salary less income tax and payroll tax. The figure that reaches your account, before benefits or retirement deductions.
- Annual gap
- One state’s take-home pay minus the other’s at the same salary. Positive means the first state leaves you with more.
- Payroll tax
- Social Security and Medicare withholding. Social Security stops at an annual wage base, so it weighs far more on a modest salary.
- Effective rate
- Total income tax as a share of gross salary. The fairest single number for comparing two states at the same income.