Scranton Paycheck Calculator 2026

What comes out of a Scranton paycheck

A Scranton paycheck loses four things in order: federal income tax withholding, FICA, Pennsylvania state income tax, and the local tax that Scranton — Scranton City, Lackawanna County — charges on gross wages. On $85,000 paid every two weeks, a single filer sees $379.62 of federal withholding, $250.09 of FICA, $100.37 of Pennsylvania tax and $111.15 of local tax come out of $3,269.23, and keeps $2,428.00. Without the city line — the same salary elsewhere in Pennsylvania — the paycheck would be $2,539.15, so Scranton costs $111.15 per paycheck, $2,890 a year, at this salary.

Everything else that reduces the deposit is a deduction: 401(k), health premiums, HSA or FSA, and after-tax items. A traditional 401(k) contribution lowers federal and Pennsylvania taxable wages, but not the Scranton local tax, which is charged on gross wages; a Section 125 health or HSA contribution lowers FICA as well. The advanced panel takes each separately.

The Scranton tax: who pays it and how much

Scranton City, Lackawanna County charges 3.40% on gross wages, made up of Scranton City municipal EIT ($2,040 a year on $85,000) and Scranton S D school district EIT ($850 a year on $85,000).

Source: PA DCED, EIT/PIT/LST Tax Register (Official) — statewide report, reporting year 2026 (checked 2026-09-01). The calculator applies it on the base the ordinance specifies, which is the detail most calculators get wrong: a 1% tax on gross wages and a 1% tax on state taxable income are different amounts, and Scranton's is on gross wages.

Residents and non-residents are treated differently. A Scranton resident on $85,000 keeps $2,428.00 every two weeks; someone who works in Scranton but lives outside keeps $2,506.46. The difference — $78.46 per paycheck — is the resident-versus-non-resident rate gap, and the calculator has a resident switch for it.

Commuters: working in Scranton, living outside

Scranton's local tax follows the place of work for non-residents and the place of residence for residents. On $85,000 a non-resident working in Scranton keeps $2,506.46 against a resident's $2,428.00. Remote workers whose employer is in Scranton but who work from home outside it generally owe the local tax only for days worked inside the city, though some cities apply a convenience rule; ask payroll to withhold on the right basis, because refunds of over-withheld local tax are slow.

Tax paid to Scranton by a non-resident is usually creditable against the local tax of the home jurisdiction if it has one, but not against Pennsylvania state tax. The W-4 fixer handles the federal withholding; local and state forms are on the Pennsylvania page.

Hourly work in Scranton: minimum wage and overtime

Hourly workers in Scranton use the same rules with a gross of rate × hours, and the Scranton local tax applies to overtime and tips like any other wage. Pennsylvania follows the federal rule: time-and-a-half after 40 hours in a workweek. Scranton's minimum wage — where the city sets one above the state's — is being verified against the city ordinance and will be listed with its source; until then, enter your actual rate on the Pennsylvania hourly page.

From 2026, the premium half of overtime pay and up to $25,000 of reported tips are deductible on the federal return without changing the withholding, which matters most for hourly and tipped work. Scranton's local tax does not follow the federal deduction: it stays on the full wage.

Cost of living in Scranton: what the paycheck buys

The metro area (Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA) has 567,887 people and a housing price level of 67.0 against a national 100. The Bureau of Economic Analysis price index for the metro area is 93.6 overall (100 = national average), with goods at 100.7, housing at 67.0 and utilities at 106.5. Housing is the component that decides whether a salary works in Scranton: at 67 it is 33% below the national level.

Deflating the $85,000 biweekly take-home of $2,428.00 by that price level gives $2,595.24 in national-average dollars — against $2,110.78 in New York City, $2,397.08 in Chicago, $2,676.21 in Houston. The paycheck ranking and the purchasing-power ranking are different lists, and for a city the second one is the one that matters.

For owners, the metro's effective property tax rate is 1.52% of home value, weighted across its 3 counties — the other large tax a Scranton household pays, and one that does not appear on any paycheck. Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities by State and Metro Area, 2024 (released 19 February 2026) (2024 data, checked 2026-09-08); property tax from the American Community Survey via our sister site.

Example Scranton paychecks in 2026

Computed by the calculator's engine for a single filer with a clean W-4, paid every two weeks, no deductions, Scranton resident:

$40,000 a year → $1,220.46 take-home per paycheck ($52.31 of it to Scranton; $1,272.77 elsewhere in Pennsylvania) — 20.7% of gross to all taxes.

$60,000 a year → $1,788.76 take-home per paycheck ($78.46 of it to Scranton; $1,867.22 elsewhere in Pennsylvania) — 22.5% of gross to all taxes.

$85,000 a year → $2,428.00 take-home per paycheck ($111.15 of it to Scranton; $2,539.15 elsewhere in Pennsylvania) — 25.7% of gross to all taxes.

$120,000 a year → $3,287.93 take-home per paycheck ($156.92 of it to Scranton; $3,444.85 elsewhere in Pennsylvania) — 28.8% of gross to all taxes.

$200,000 a year → $5,193.31 take-home per paycheck ($261.54 of it to Scranton; $5,454.85 elsewhere in Pennsylvania) — 32.0% of gross to all taxes.

The Scranton line scales exactly with gross, because it is a flat percentage of wages with no deduction; the federal line grows fastest because the brackets are progressive. Every amount has its own page under salary after tax with the 51-state table.

Scranton vs New York City, Chicago, Houston

On $85,000 every two weeks, a single filer keeps $2,428.00 in Scranton; $2,375.96 in New York City, $2,483.26 in Chicago, $2,639.52 in Houston. Chicago and Houston leave more on the paycheck; Scranton's local tax is $111.15 of the difference. Combined with the price index above, the order can flip: a bigger paycheck in a dearer city buys less.

Other Pennsylvania cities with a page: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh.

The math behind a Scranton paycheck

Take $85,000 paid every two weeks: $3,269.23 gross. Federal. The percentage method annualises it to $85,000, subtracts the $8,600 step-1 adjustment for a single filer to get $76,400, finds the row of the standard withholding table starting at $57,900 (base $5,800 plus 22% of the excess) and arrives at $9,870 for the year, $379.62 per paycheck. FICA. 6.2% of $3,269.23 is $202.69 and 1.45% is $47.40.

Pennsylvania. On the annualised $85,000, $85,000 is taxable; at 3.07% that is $2,610 a year, $100.37 per paycheck.

Scranton. 3.40% of gross wages ($85,000) is $2,890 a year, $111.15 per paycheck. Together: $3,269.23 − $379.62 − $250.09 − $100.37 − $111.15 = $2,428.00.

A year of Scranton paychecks: the ones that change

Two things make a paycheck differ from the one before it. The Social Security wage base — $184,500 in 2026 — stops the 6.2% once your wages pass it: on $200,000 in Scranton, paid every two weeks, that is around paycheck 24 of 26, and the take-home goes from $5,193.31 to about $5,670.23. The Scranton local tax has no such cap: it stays on every paycheck. Enter your year-to-date gross in the advanced panel and the change lands on the right paycheck.

The calendar does the rest: 26 biweekly paychecks means two months a year with three paydays, and 24 semi-monthly ones means every month has two. The biweekly paycheck is about 7.7% smaller on the same salary. And because withholding annualises each paycheck on its own, a bonus month or an overtime-heavy fortnight is withheld as if it repeated all year; the excess comes back at filing, and the «withholding vs what you owe» box under the calculator shows how far the year is drifting.

Filing status and dependents in Scranton

On $65,000 every two weeks in Scranton, a single filer keeps $1,930.85 and a married person filing jointly $2,014.69, assuming the salary is the household's only income — the case the W-4's step 2 exists to correct when it is not. Two children entered on step 3 ($4,400 a year, the 2026 child tax credit for two) lift the single filer's paycheck to $2,100.08, $169.23 more each time. Scranton's local tax ignores filing status and dependents entirely: it is a flat share of wages.

Do not put the same child on two W-4s: each employer subtracts the full credit and the household under-withholds by that amount. The W-4 fixer splits the credit and gives each spouse the exact lines.

What a raise really leaves in Scranton

A $5,000 raise from $65,000 to $70,000 adds $192.31 of gross to a biweekly paycheck in Scranton and $128.62 of take-home: 66.9% survives. The rest is the marginal rate — federal 22%, FICA 7.65%, Pennsylvania 3.07%, Scranton 3.40% — on the new dollars only. A raise never lowers your take-home; the «higher bracket» worry is arithmetic that does not exist in a progressive system. The pay raise calculator does this for any two figures and says whether the raise beats inflation.

An hourly paycheck in Scranton, worked through

$20 an hour, 40 hours a week, every two weeks: $1,600.00 gross; federal $108.15, FICA $122.40, Pennsylvania $49.12, Scranton $54.40; take-home $1,265.93, 79.1% of gross. Add five overtime hours at time-and-a-half and the paycheck becomes $1,750.00 gross, $1,376.75 net: 73.9% of the extra survives.

The premium half of that overtime — $50.00 per paycheck — is deductible federally from 2026, which the withholding ignores and the Pennsylvania hourly calculator counts toward the refund: $1,300 on these numbers. Scranton's tax stays on the full overtime wage.

Reading a Scranton pay stub

Gross at the top; FIT or Fed W/H for federal income tax; OASDI or SS for Social Security; MED or HI for Medicare; SIT or PA W/H for Pennsylvania; and a line named for the city — SCRANTON, LOCAL, EIT, OCC or CITY — for the local tax. YTD columns carry the running totals the wage-base rules use.

Pre-tax deductions sit above the taxes and reduce the taxable figures; after-tax ones sit below. If the federal taxable wages differ from gross by more than your pre-tax deductions, a benefit is being treated as imputed income. The pay stub preview above lays out the calculator's figures the same way, and the what is a pay stub guide decodes every abbreviation.

A worked example: $58,000 in Pennsylvania, paid every two weeks

Take $58,000 a year in Pennsylvania, paid every two weeks (26 paychecks), single, standard W-4, no pre-tax deductions. The gross per paycheck is $2,230.77. Federal income tax withholding, from the 2026 Publication 15-T percentage method, takes $183.85. Social Security takes 6.2% of gross, $138.31, and Medicare 1.45%, $32.35. Pennsylvania withholds $68.48 under its flat rate and deductions. The net deposit is $1,807.78, 81.0% of gross; over the year that is $47,002 from $58,000, an effective rate of 19.0% on all taxes together. Every line is reproducible from the documents on the sources page, and the table below lists them in the order they appear on a stub.

Two things on that stub are not obvious from the totals. First, the federal line is withholding, not tax: the tables annualise this paycheck as if all 26 were identical, and the year's actual tax, $4,780, differs from the $4,780 withheld by $0, which becomes a refund in April. Second, Social Security and Medicare are the same fraction of every paycheck of the year, because the salary is under the wage base, and no form can change them; only Section 125 deductions reduce their base. The reading guide walks each line and names what it should equal.

Nearby salaries: what $38,000 to $93,000 leave in Pennsylvania

A raise or a job offer is rarely at the round number on this page, so here is the ladder around it: the same every two weeks paycheck at 6 salaries from $38,000 to $93,000, single, standard W-4, no deductions. The effective rate climbs from 17.0% to 23.2% across the range because federal income tax is progressive while FICA is flat; each extra $10,000 of salary leaves less than the last, and the pay raise calculator prices any step exactly. The salary after tax pages carry the full range, one page per amount.

Reading the ladder the other way answers the interview question: to take home $10,000 more a year in Pennsylvania takes a raise of roughly $13,025 in gross at this level, because the new dollars are taxed at the marginal rate rather than the average. The state column grows in a straight line, since Pennsylvania charges one rate; the FICA column grows in a straight line until the wage base. The gross-up calculator runs the reverse computation for any net.

Common mistakes on Scranton paychecks

Wrong resident status. Scranton charges residents and non-residents differently, and payroll systems default to one of the two; check the stub shows the right rate. Missing local line. If the local tax is missing from your stub, it is still owed and arrives as a bill. Reading the bonus withholding as the tax. The flat 22% federal rate on a bonus is withholding, not tax.

Budgeting from the wrong paycheck. Biweekly and semi-monthly differ by about 7.7% on the same salary. Ignoring the Social Security cap. Above $184,500 the later paychecks are larger. Leaving the state form blank. Pennsylvania uses the federal W-4, so a wrong federal form is a wrong state line too.

The four taxes on a Scranton paycheck, and why they behave differently

Federal income tax is progressive and starts from zero: the first $16,100 a single filer earns in 2026 is untaxed because that is the standard deduction, and the rate climbs through seven brackets. It is the only line that responds to your W-4. FICA is flat from the first dollar — 6.2% for Social Security up to $184,500 and 1.45% for Medicare without limit — and no form changes it. Pennsylvania income tax is a single rate of 3.07%, applied on an annualised basis. Scranton's local tax is 3.40% on gross wages, so it behaves like FICA: flat, from the first dollar, unaffected by deductions.

Keeping them apart is the point of the line-by-line result: a 401(k) contribution moves the federal and Pennsylvania lines but not FICA or the Scranton line; a raise moves all of them but at different rates; the Social Security cap moves only one. A single «taxes» figure hides which lever does what.

401(k), HSA and health premiums on a Scranton paycheck

A $250 contribution to a traditional 401(k) on the $85,000 example lowers the Scranton take-home from $2,428.00 to $2,240.68: $187.32 of paycheck for $250 of savings, because the contribution comes out before federal and Pennsylvania income tax but not before FICA or the Scranton tax. The same $250 into a health plan or HSA through a Section 125 arrangement costs $168.20 of take-home, less again, because it escapes FICA too.

The 2026 limits are $24,500 for 401(k) elective deferrals ($8,000 more from age 50) and $4,400 / $8,750 for HSA self-only and family coverage. The 401(k) chart under the calculator draws the cost curve for your own figures, one percent at a time.

Moving to Scranton: what changes on the paycheck

For someone arriving on $85,000: from New York City the biweekly paycheck goes from $2,375.96 to $2,428.00 ($52.04 more); from Los Angeles the biweekly paycheck goes from $2,498.75 to $2,428.00 ($70.75 less); from Chicago the biweekly paycheck goes from $2,483.26 to $2,428.00 ($55.26 less); from Houston the biweekly paycheck goes from $2,639.52 to $2,428.00 ($211.52 less). Counting prices, the Scranton paycheck is worth $2,595.24 in national-average dollars, against $2,110.78 in New York City, $2,200.26 in Los Angeles, $2,397.08 in Chicago, $2,676.21 in Houston.

The paycheck is the visible part of a move and rarely the largest: housing in Scranton is at 67 on the BEA index against 100 nationally, and that difference on a rent or a mortgage usually outweighs the tax line. The state hub compares all 51 states for any salary; our sister site's [city comparisons](https://estimatetax.net/compare/cities/) add property tax and housing for a full relocation picture.

How Pennsylvania's rate has changed, and what it means for Scranton

We have not yet loaded a rate history for Pennsylvania. Twenty-six states have cut income tax rates since 2021 and seven have moved from brackets to a single rate, so the direction of travel nationally is downward.

Scranton's local rate moves on its own timetable, set by the city and school district; any change is listed in the data changelog with its source.

The salary ladder in Scranton

Seven salaries, single filer, every two weeks, Scranton resident: $30,000 → $936.31 per paycheck, $24,344 a year (18.9% to taxes); $45,000 → $1,362.53 per paycheck, $35,426 a year (21.3% to taxes); $60,000 → $1,788.76 per paycheck, $46,508 a year (22.5% to taxes); $75,000 → $2,182.30 per paycheck, $56,740 a year (24.3% to taxes); $100,000 → $2,796.53 per paycheck, $72,710 a year (27.3% to taxes); $150,000 → $4,003.31 per paycheck, $104,086 a year (30.6% to taxes); $250,000 → $6,284.47 per paycheck, $163,396 a year (33.2% to taxes).

In national-average dollars, after Scranton's price level of 93.6: $30,000 buys $26,021, $45,000 buys $37,866, $60,000 buys $49,711, $75,000 buys $60,648, $100,000 buys $77,718, $150,000 buys $111,255, $250,000 buys $174,651. The gap between the paycheck and what it buys is the same -6.9% at every rung, but it matters most at the bottom, where housing takes the largest share.

Hourly rates in Scranton: six examples

At 40 hours a week, paid every two weeks: $15 an hour → $970.41 take-home (80.9% of $1,200.00); $18 an hour → $1,147.72 take-home (79.7% of $1,440.00); $22 an hour → $1,384.14 take-home (78.6% of $1,760.00); $25 an hour → $1,561.45 take-home (78.1% of $2,000.00); $30 an hour → $1,856.97 take-home (77.4% of $2,400.00); $40 an hour → $2,383.78 take-home (74.5% of $3,200.00). The share kept falls slowly with the rate because federal brackets are progressive while FICA and the Scranton tax are flat.

Every rate has its own page under hourly to salary, and the Pennsylvania hourly calculator adds overtime, tips and multiple rates.

Two earners in Scranton

A couple in Scranton each earning $60,000 has two paychecks that, filled in correctly, look like this: with the step 2(c) box checked on both W-4s, each keeps $1,788.76 every two weeks; without it — each employer assuming its paycheck is the household's only income — each keeps $1,872.61, $83.85 more per paycheck, and the household under-withholds by about $4,360 over the year, which arrives as a bill in April. The box exists precisely to prevent that.

The dual income calculator works the household as a whole — both salaries, the joint return, the marriage penalty or bonus — and the W-4 fixer gives each spouse the exact lines. Scranton's local tax is charged to each earner separately and does not care about filing status.

A bonus in Scranton

A $5,000 bonus paid with the $85,000 salary's regular paycheck is withheld federally at the flat 22% — $1,100 — plus Pennsylvania's supplemental withholding and Scranton's tax at its usual rate: the bonus paycheck comes to $5,769.60 against the usual $2,428.00, so $3,341.60 of the $5,000 arrives. The tax actually due on the bonus at the 22% federal marginal rate is $1,100, so the flat withholding under-withholds and the difference is owed at filing. The bonus tax calculator shows both IRS methods for Pennsylvania.

Year end in Scranton: the W-2 and the refund

In January your employer's W-2 reports the year's wages and withholding: box 1 federal taxable wages (after the 401(k)), box 3 Social Security wages (before it, capped at $184,500), box 5 Medicare wages, box 2 federal tax withheld, boxes 16 and 17 Pennsylvania wages and tax, and boxes 18 to 20 Scranton local wages and tax. If box 3 is larger than box 1, the difference is your pre-tax retirement contribution; if boxes 1, 3 and 5 are all equal, nothing was taken pre-tax. From 2026 the W-2 also reports qualified overtime and tips separately, for the new deductions.

On the $85,000 example with a clean W-4, the year's federal withholding of $9,870 matches the projected tax of $9,870 within a few dollars, so the federal return settles close to zero; the Scranton tax is settled on the local earned income tax return. The «withholding vs what you owe» box under the calculator gives the projection for your own figures.

Your first paycheck in Scranton: a checklist

Federal W-4: filing status, step 2 if there is a second income in the household, step 3 for children. Pennsylvania uses the federal W-4 for the state line. Your Scranton address and work location: the local tax depends on them, and the Residency Certification Form with your PSD code is what payroll needs. Compare the first stub with the pay stub preview above, line by line.

If you moved to Scranton from a city that taxes wages — New York, Philadelphia, an Ohio city — the missing line is real and permanent, not a payroll error. If you moved the other way, the new line is real too, and it is worth checking the resident or non-resident rate is the one being applied.