Easton to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · NORTHAMPTON to LEHIGH County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.95%
Easton, residents
Work rate
1%
Bethlehem, non-residents
You pay
1.95%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxEaston already charges its residents more than Bethlehem charges commuters, so the home rate governs and the job adds nothing at all. You pay the solid bar only — Pennsylvania charges the higher of the two rates, never their sum. Local earned income tax only; state, federal and payroll tax apply on top.
What this commute actually costs
- Live in Easton, work in Bethlehem, and your local tax is your home rate: about 1.95%. That is $1,170 a year on a sixty-thousand salary. The work location adds nothing. Pennsylvania charges whichever rate is higher, and yours already is.
- Easton is one of 12 places sending workers into Bethlehem, ranking 4 by size with about 824 commuters. It is Easton's 1 destination of 2.
- Residence controls this pairing: Easton levies about 1.95% on residents, at or above Bethlehem's non-resident rate, so the outcome is the resident rate — about 1.95%, or $1,170 at the reference salary. Employers still withhold against the work location's collector, but the amount is unchanged and the residence is the ultimate recipient.
- Across 12 inflows to Bethlehem tracked here, Easton ranks 4 at 824 workers, and this is that municipality's 1 destination of 2. Rate and volume are independent: a large catchment is not necessarily a high-rate one, and the two rankings frequently disagree.
Where the money goes
A $75,000 salary
- Federal income tax$7,670
- Social Security and Medicare$5,738
- State income tax$2,303
- Yours$59,290
| Federal income tax10.23% | $7,670 |
|---|---|
| Social Security and Medicare7.65% | $5,738 |
| State income tax3.07% | $2,303 |
| Yours79.05% | $59,290 |
The arithmetic, side by side
| If you worked in Easton | $1,170 |
|---|---|
| Working in Bethlehem | $1,170 |
| Difference | $0 |
On a reference salary of $60,000 a year. The local tax is flat, so every figure scales with your own pay.
What this page does not cover
- To be explicit, since the arrangement invites confusion. The rates for Easton and Bethlehem are not stacked. Pennsylvania takes the larger one. What is collected then gets divided between the two municipalities. That division does not change what comes out of your pay.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Easton and Bethlehem levy. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still apply. All three are the same wherever in Pennsylvania you work.
- The dollar figures use a flat reference salary of sixty thousand a year. That is a benchmark, not an average for Easton. No wage data exists for single municipalities, and inventing one would be worse. Scale the numbers to your own pay. The rate for the Bethlehem commute is what matters, and it does not change with income.
- Two practical cautions. Postal addresses and taxing boundaries do not always agree. Your post may say Easton while your taxing municipality is a different one. Pennsylvania publishes an official lookup to settle it. The same caution applies at the Bethlehem end. Philadelphia is a special case too, with its own wage tax.
- The two rates applicable to a Easton–Bethlehem commute are alternatives, not addends. The statute fixes the employee's liability at the greater of them and then apportions the proceeds, with the residence receiving up to its own rate and the excess passing to the work location. The apportionment is fiscally significant to the municipalities and immaterial to the worker.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Easton and Bethlehem and are therefore outside the model. A total tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- Dollar amounts are computed against a stated reference salary rather than a municipal wage average, which does not exist for Pennsylvania municipalities in any published source. Because the local tax is flat, the rate is invariant to income and the figures scale linearly — the Easton to Bethlehem differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it.
- Two caveats bear on accuracy. First, postal addresses and municipal taxing boundaries diverge frequently in Pennsylvania, so a Easton address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Easton rate. Second, Philadelphia administers its wage tax outside this framework, with its own resident and non-resident rates and its own credit arrangements, so any pairing touching it should be checked against the city's own schedule.
Questions people ask
Do I pay local tax twice — once where I work and once where I live?
No — you pay the higher of the two rates and never the sum. Easton levies about 1.95% on residents and Bethlehem levies about 1% on people who work there; whichever is larger is what you owe, and your employer withholds it.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
Nothing extra. The tax is redirected rather than increased, so this particular crossing costs you no more than working in Easton would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you live. Easton levies at least as much as Bethlehem, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
824 people travel it. Volume decides whether a route gets published at all, never what the tax on it is.
How does Pennsylvania's local earned income tax law allocate liability between two districts?
Pennsylvania's local earned income tax law assigns the higher of the residence rate (about 1.95%) and the non-resident work rate (about 1%); liabilities are never summed. The employer withholds at the governing rate and remits through the work district's collector, which then distributes to the residence district.
Why is the marginal cost of this crossing zero?
Marginal liability from working outside the residence jurisdiction is zero on this route. The crossing alters the distribution of revenue between jurisdictions but not the employee's total. ⚠️ This is route-specific and does not generalise to other pairs in the same dataset.
Which district's rate governs on this route?
The residence rate equals or exceeds the work district's non-resident rate and therefore governs. Working outside the residence district does not increase employee liability on this route; it affects only inter-district distribution.
What is the measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 824 workers per Census LODES, above the publication floor but below the dataset's upper quartile. Liability is determined by jurisdictional rates and residence rules alone; commuter volume has no bearing on it and is reported only as context.