Here’s the Salary Needed To Take Home $100K in the Poorest States

If you want to take home $100,000 annually in the states where the cost of living is considerably lower than more expensive regions of the United States, you still need to earn a substantial amount of money — hitting a minimum threshold of $130,000 — to bring home six figures.

For this piece, GOBankingRates referred to an existing in-house study on how much the top 1% pay in taxes in the poorest states to determine which states are the poorest. The isolated states, and the salaries needed for $100,000 take-home pay, were pulled from a separate GOBankingRates study on the income needed in each state for taking home $100,000.

In alphabetical order, this is how much salary is necessary to take home $100,000 in the 15 poorest states.

• Salary needed for $100K: $139,188
• Tax burden: 28.2%

• Salary needed for $100K: $139,054
• Tax burden: 28.1%

• Salary needed for $100K: $141,187
• Tax burden: 29.2%

• Salary needed for $100K: $138,944
• Tax burden: 28.0%

• Salary needed for $100K: $136,927
• Tax burden: 27.0%

• Salary needed for $100K: $139,313
• Tax burden: 28.2%

• Salary needed for $100K: $139,321
• Tax burden: 28.2%

• Salary needed for $100K: $139,547
• Tax burden: 28.3%

• Salary needed for $100K: $139,333
• Tax burden: 28.2%

• Salary needed for $100K: $136,911
• Tax burden: 27.0%

• Salary needed for $100K: $139,830
• Tax burden: 28.5%

• Salary needed for $100K: $141,429
• Tax burden: 29.3%

• Salary needed for $100K: $130,999
• Tax burden: 23.7%

• Salary needed for $100K: $130,999
• Tax burden: 23.7%

• Salary needed for $100K: $139,656
• Tax burden: 28.4%

Methodology: To generate the income for what it takes to bring home a $100,000 salary by state, GOBankingRates surveyed income taxes at both the federal and state level (including FICA). Income tax estimates were created by using an in-house calculator for a person who was filing their taxes as a single person and using the standard deduction (with 2024 tax brackets). Once the three income taxes were calculated as an annual amount, GOBankingRates found each state’s (4) total annual income taxes paid and (5) total income tax burden. All data was collected on and is up to date as of March 12, 2025.