An income of $100,000 may serve as a mental threshold for some financial breathing room, but its real purchasing power largely depends on location and lifestyle, according to new research from SmartAsset.
Taxes vary across the United States, as states and cities put levies on income, property, sales and estates to fund their operations.
Moreover, reaching a $100,000 income may push a household from the 22% to the 24% marginal tax bracket, depending on how it files taxes. And cities with high costs for housing and everyday essentials may further gnaw away at a $100,000 income.
For the study, SmartAsset researchers used the firm's paycheck calculator to apply federal, state and local taxes to an annual salary of $100,000 for an individual. They then adjusted take-home income for local cost of living in 69 of the biggest U.S. cities, using data from the Council for Community and Economic Research; for New York City, they used borough-specific data.
The cost of living averaged the prices of housing, groceries, utilities, transportation and miscellaneous goods and services across 2025.
In 68% of big cities, the research showed, a dollar stretched further in 2025 than it did the year before. Overall, the combination of costs and taxes are trending favorably for urbanites.
The average value of $100,000 across the study increased from $71,669 to $72,444. The effective tax rate on single filers in these locations averaged 24.9%.
See the accompanying gallery for the 12 cities where a $100,000 income in 2025 had the lowest purchasing power.
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