Jeannette to Hempfield Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · WESTMORELAND to MERCER County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.4%
Jeannette, residents
Work rate
1%
Hempfield Township, non-residents
You pay
1.4%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxJeannette already charges its residents more than Hempfield Township 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 Jeannette, work in Hempfield Township, and your local tax is your home rate: about 1.4%. That is $840 a year on a sixty-thousand salary. The work location adds nothing. Pennsylvania charges whichever rate is higher, and yours already is.
- This route is one of 4 into Hempfield Township tracked here, ranking 4 by how many people travel it. Around 540 make the trip. Seen from the other end, Hempfield Township is Jeannette's number 1 destination of 1.
- Residence controls this pairing: Jeannette levies about 1.4% on residents, at or above Hempfield Township's non-resident rate, so the outcome is the resident rate — about 1.4%, or $840 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.
- Of 4 recorded inflows to Hempfield Township, this route ranks 4 by worker count, carrying 540 commuters from Jeannette. Viewed from the origin it is that municipality's 1 destination of 1 recorded — neither the largest catchment nor a marginal one.
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 Jeannette | $840 |
|---|---|
| Working in Hempfield Township | $840 |
| 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. Jeannette and Hempfield Township 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Jeannette or Hempfield Township takes sits on top of state tax, federal tax and Social Security. Those three do not care where you live or work.
- Sixty thousand a year is a benchmark. It is not a guess at what people in Jeannette earn. No published wage figure exists for single municipalities. The rate is the durable part of this page. The dollars scale straight up and down with whatever you earn in Hempfield Township.
- A postal address in Jeannette does not prove which municipality taxes you. Boundaries and postcodes disagree often enough here that the state publishes a lookup. Philadelphia is a special case too. Its wage tax sits outside the rules that govern Hempfield Township.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Jeannette resident working in Hempfield Township 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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Jeannette to Hempfield Township commute. State and federal liabilities are constant across Pennsylvania municipalities and are excluded so the municipal differential is visible rather than buried inside a larger total.
- The reference salary is a stated benchmark, not an estimate of Jeannette earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the Hempfield Township commute scale linearly with income and the rate comparison holds at every salary.
- Municipal taxing jurisdiction is determined by boundary rather than by postal address, and the two diverge frequently enough in Pennsylvania that the DCED lookup should be treated as authoritative for Jeannette. Philadelphia is additionally outside this regime, administering its own wage tax on residents and non-residents under separate authority, so it does not follow the treatment described for Hempfield Township.
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 Jeannette's about 1.4% and Hempfield Township's about 1%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
On this route, nothing. You owe exactly what you would have owed working at home — the boundary is real on a map and invisible on your pay stub, which is not true of every pair of towns here.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you live. Jeannette levies at least as much as Hempfield Township, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
It is a smaller route: 540 workers. That affects how representative it is, not whether the tax arithmetic applies — the rules are the same on a quiet road as a busy one.
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 1.4%) 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 540 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.