Greensburg to Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · WESTMORELAND to ALLEGHENY County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.65%
Greensburg, residents
Work rate
1%
Pittsburgh, non-residents
You pay
1.65%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxGreensburg already charges its residents more than Pittsburgh 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
- Good news for this commute. Working in Pittsburgh costs you nothing extra. Greensburg charges residents about 1.65%, at least as much as Pittsburgh asks of people who work there but live elsewhere. The higher rate wins, so your home rate is simply the rate. That is $990 a year, wherever you work.
- Greensburg is one of 85 places sending workers into Pittsburgh, ranking 77 by size with about 595 commuters. It is Greensburg's 2 destination of 2.
- For the Greensburg to Pittsburgh commute the residence governs. Greensburg's resident rate of about 1.65% equals or exceeds Pittsburgh's non-resident rate, so Pennsylvania's greater-of test resolves to the resident rate and the effective burden is about 1.65%, or $990 at the reference salary. The workplace adds nothing; the entire amount is remitted to the residence. This is the majority outcome and the one most commuters need confirmed.
- Across 85 inflows to Pittsburgh tracked here, Greensburg ranks 77 at 595 workers, and this is that municipality's 2 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 Greensburg | $990 |
|---|---|
| Working in Pittsburgh | $990 |
| 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
- One thing worth being clear about, because it catches people out. You are not charged by both places. Greensburg and Pittsburgh do not add their rates together. Pennsylvania picks the higher of the two, and that is what you pay. Adding them would roughly double the bill.
- Everything here is the local earned income tax and nothing else. State income tax applies on top, as do federal tax and Social Security. None of those change when you cross a municipal line between Greensburg and Pittsburgh. This page is about the layer that does.
- All the dollar amounts rest on one assumed salary. It is stated rather than measured, because nobody publishes average pay for Greensburg. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Pittsburgh conclusion holds.
- Two practical cautions. Postal addresses and taxing boundaries do not always agree. Your post may say Greensburg while your taxing municipality is a different one. Pennsylvania publishes an official lookup to settle it. The same caution applies at the Pittsburgh end. Philadelphia is a special case too, with its own wage tax.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Greensburg resident working in Pittsburgh is the higher of the two applicable rates, not their sum. The distinction is worth stating plainly because the additive reading is intuitive and would overstate the charge by roughly a factor of two. What is divided between the municipalities is the remittance, not the worker's liability.
- Figures cover the local earned income tax exclusively. Pennsylvania's flat state income tax, federal income tax and FICA apply in addition and are invariant to the Greensburg–Pittsburgh municipal boundary, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as Greensburg. The flat structure of the local tax means the Pittsburgh comparison is scale-invariant, so the rate difference rather than the dollar difference is the transferable result.
- Two caveats bear on accuracy. First, postal addresses and municipal taxing boundaries diverge frequently in Pennsylvania, so a Greensburg address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Greensburg 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?
Only once, at the higher rate. Between Greensburg's about 1.65% and Pittsburgh's about 1%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
Not a cent on this one. The crossing changes where the money is sent, not how much of it leaves, so your total matches a stay-at-home commute.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you live. Greensburg levies at least as much as Pittsburgh, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
595 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 1.65%) 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 595 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.