Prescription refill in Alaska
At $75,000 income
$43
Rank among states we cover
43 of 51
vs. national median
-6%
At about $43 of gross income on a $75,000 salary, a prescription refill in Alaska runs 6% below the national median — 43 of 51 states this can be computed for. That's not a rounding difference: vary the price, the filing status or the county, and Alaska still lands below the middle of the pack. Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming reach exactly the same figure — on this category, nothing in the calculation separates them. Alaska's sales tax averages 1.82% statewide, and none of it is waived for this purchase.
Montana costs about the same for a prescription refill
Prices in Alaska
Everyday prices in Alaska run 1.71% above the national average. Goods, the things you buy off a shelf, run 0.37% above average. That puts it at 13 on the price ladder, where first is the most expensive. A hundred dollars of average American shopping costs $101.72 here.
The cost above uses one national price for a prescription refill, so these local prices are not in it. See how prices break down in Alaska.
BEA regional price parity, all items: about 1.71% above the national level, rank 13 by price level, most expensive first. Goods parity: about 0.37% above. A national-average basket costing one hundred dollars costs $102 here.
The category figures above apply a single national default price and are not adjusted for this price level. A parity measures what a basket costs, not what a salary is worth after tax. Full Alaska price-level breakdown.
Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities by state (SARPP), 2023, as of 2023-12-31.
Try your own numbers
to cover a prescription refill
- Income tax (federal, FICA, state)30%$13
- Prescription refill70%$30
- Income tax (federal, FICA, state)
- Prescription refill
Data for nerds — sources, confidence and assumptions
Data for nerdssources, confidence, assumptions
Where each number comes from
| Component | Amount | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Item price | $30.00 | Your figureHigh confidence. You supplied this, so it is exact by definition. |
| Income tax to earn it | $12.64 | StatutoryHigh confidence. This number is the law — federal, FICA and state tax rates are published rates, so the only real risk is staleness. |
Jurisdiction applied
- State:
AK - Sales tax county:
Statewide average - Local income tax: none selected
Assumptions
- We use your state's own rule, including the reduced rate Illinois charges instead of a full exemption.
- The amount you enter is what you hand over at the counter. What your insurance covers sets that number, and we don't model it.
- Medicine you buy off the shelf is usually taxed. That's a separate page.
- Your own state's prescription rule is applied, verified state by state, including Illinois's reduced rate rather than a full exemption.
- The amount entered is what is paid at the counter. Insurance, deductibles and negotiated prices determine that amount and are not modeled.
- Over-the-counter medicines are taxed as ordinary goods in most states and are covered separately.
Sources
What this commitment adds up to
$5,117 over 10 yrsPrescription refill, every month — $512 of income every year, and 14 hrs of your life.
Year by year
| Year | Spent | Invested instead |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $360 | $360 |
| 2 | $720 | $745 |
| 3 | $1,080 | $1,157 |
| 4 | $1,440 | $1,598 |
| 5 | $1,800 | $2,070 |
| 6 | $2,160 | $2,575 |
| 7 | $2,520 | $3,115 |
| 8 | $2,880 | $3,694 |
| 9 | $3,240 | $4,312 |
| 10 | $3,600 | $4,974 |
Prices and wages are held at today's levels, and the return above is inflation-adjusted to match — consistent by design. The invested-instead line assumes the cash is contributed at the end of each year and left alone; it is an alternative use of the same money, never an extra cost on top.
Your position in the tax system
29.65% on the next dollarEvery extra dollar you earn is taxed at your marginal rate, not your average one — which is why a purchase costs more to fund than a paycheck stub suggests.
Marginal rates are read in gross-income terms: below the standard deduction an extra dollar of pay adds nothing to taxable income, so the true rate there is 0%, not the lowest bracket's. Excludes pre-tax deductions (401(k), HSA), which would lower all three.
Same purchase, different state
AK is #1 of 51The purchase inputs and income stay the same. Your row uses your calculator settings; other states use example counties and omit local income tax. Spread across all 51: $6, from Alaska to Oregon.
- Alaskayou$43
- $49
Choose a state name to compare against somewhere else.
Where every dollar goes
30% never reaches youThe $42.64 you must earn, followed to where it lands. Select a band to isolate it.
- Federal income tax$9.38
- FICA (Social Security + Medicare)$3.26
- Prescription refill$30.00
Each tax layer is the extra tax this purchase causes — that layer's tax at your income subtracted from its tax at your income plus the gross-up — so bracket boundaries the purchase straddles are handled correctly rather than smoothed over with an average rate.
Is a raise actually a raise?
you keep 70%A raise arrives on top of everything you already earn, so it is taxed at your marginal rate — not the average rate on your whole salary.
Federal, FICA, state and any local income tax — no pre-tax deductions, benefit changes, or payroll withholding quirks, all of which move the real figure. Moving into a higher bracket never taxes the income below the threshold: only the dollars above it pay the higher rate.
The arithmetic, for Alaska
Every figure below is computed, not illustrated — this is the actual chain the calculator walks for a single filer earning $75,000 in Alaska, in the 2026 tax year. Follow it down and you can check our work.
| Gross salary | $75,000 | Where every calculation starts. |
|---|---|---|
| Less the federal standard deduction | −$16,100 | The 2026 figure for a single filer. |
| Federally taxable income | $58,900 | What the bracket table is applied to. |
| Federal income tax | −$7,670 | Top bracket reached: 22.00%. |
| FICA — Social Security and Medicare | −$5,738 | 7.65% up to the wage base, then 1.45% above it. |
| Alaska taxable income | $75,000 | This state grants no deduction against this income. |
| Alaska income tax | −$0 | This line is genuinely zero — Alaska does not tax wage income at all. |
| Take-home pay | $61,593 | $13,408 withheld — 17.88% of the salary never reaches you. |
The tag price and the true cost are never the same number: earning one dollar to spend takes roughly 1.22 of them here — that's the multiplier applied to every purchase on this page.
What's different about Alaska
- There is no state income tax in Alaska. The line is 0% — zero, not low. That one absence explains most of why this purchase needs less earned income here. It ranks 43 nationally, a place it shares with every other state charging nothing.
- Sales tax across Alaska averages about 1.82% combined. Local rates move within a state far more than most people expect. Your own county may sit either side of this number.
- A prescription refill in Alaska takes $43 of gross income, rank 43. The full range spans $6.06: Alaska at $43 on one side, Oregon at $49 on the other.
- The closest state to Alaska on this purchase is Montana, at $46 — $3.72 apart. Politically these two can feel nothing alike. Add up the whole stack and they still land a few dollars from each other.
- Alaska collects at the register rather than the pay stub — sales tax, but no income tax. That trade matters. "No income tax" on its own is a poor guide to whether a state is cheap.
- No state individual income tax applies in Alaska, which places it at 0% effective and rank 43 nationally — a rank shared with every other state levying nothing, since equal rates tie under standard competition ranking. The distinction from a low-rate state matters: the withholding line is absent from the stack entirely, which is why the earned-income requirement here diverges most sharply from states whose headline rates look modest.
- Combined state and local sales tax across Alaska averages about 1.82%. Intra-state variation in the local component routinely exceeds a percentage point, and this figure is a statewide average rather than a named county — so it describes no particular address, and a specific jurisdiction can sit meaningfully above or below it.
- A prescription refill in Alaska requires $43 of gross income, ranking 43. Across all states the requirement varies by $6.06, bounded by Alaska at $43 and Oregon at $49.
- Montana is the nearest state to Alaska on this purchase at $46, a difference of $3.72. Full-stack totals routinely converge across states whose statutory structures and politics differ sharply, because the earn-side and spend-side layers offset one another.
- Alaska collects on the spend side: a general sales tax with no individual income tax. The substitution is why headline "no income tax" comparisons mislead — the revenue is recovered at the point of sale, and the incidence simply falls on consumption instead of earnings.
What this page can't tell you
Worth being straight about, because a number without its limits is just a claim.
- These figures assume one filer with no dependants. They also assume nothing goes into a retirement account or an HSA before tax, and no itemized deductions. Any of those would cut the tax. That would cut the true cost too.
- Sales tax here uses Statewide average to stand in for the whole state. Rates move between counties, often by more than a full point. Live somewhere else? Put your own combined rate into the calculator. The result will follow.
- Ownership costs fall back on national averages sometimes. That happens where a state figure does not exist, or could not be checked against a primary source. The data panel on the result says so outright when it does. We do not dress an estimate up as a measurement.
- Figures assume a single filer with no dependants, no pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions, and the standard deduction rather than itemized deductions. Each of those would reduce taxable income and therefore the gross-up, so the figures here should be read as an upper bound on the earn-side requirement for this household shape.
- The sales-tax component uses Statewide average as a representative jurisdiction for Alaska. Intra-state variation in the local component commonly exceeds a percentage point, so an address elsewhere in the state will diverge; the calculator accepts a user-supplied combined rate for that reason.
- Ownership-layer inputs fall back to national averages where a state-level figure is unavailable or could not be verified against a primary source. Those fallbacks are disclosed per-figure in the provenance panel rather than being silently blended into the total, so an estimate is never presented with the same confidence as a measurement.
Questions people ask
Why is this cheaper in Alaska?
The saving is in the earning, not the price tag. Alaska leaves more of your pay intact, which is why this lands at $43, saving $2.91 against the median state.
Alaska has no income tax, so why do I still need to earn this much?
Skipping the state layer helps, and it is the reason this state ranks where it does. But the two biggest deductions on almost every paycheck are federal, and those follow you across every border.
How much of this is sales tax?
The combined rate here is about 1.82%, charged on the price at the register. That part you can see. The larger part is what came out of your pay before you got there.
Is Alaska really the extreme case for this?
This is an end of the spread, not a typical result. Alaska needs $43, and that figure is the boundary rather than a point inside the range.
What does Alaska's ranking on this actually mean?
It means Alaska places 43 when every state we can compute this for is lined up by how much you must earn, most expensive first. It is a ranking of tax structure, not of prices in the shops.
This is a monthly cost — does the state matter more or less?
More. The state gap applies every single time the cost comes round, so a monthly purchase multiplies whatever difference exists rather than settling it once.
What is this figure leaving out?
There is a declared gap. Rather than fold in a guess, the page names what is missing and leaves it out of the arithmetic, which keeps the number defensible even though it is incomplete.
What places Alaska below the national median here?
The state sits below the national median on the combined wedge applied to this outlay — income tax, purchase tax, or both. Required gross income is $43, $2.91 under the median; the differential is a function of tax structure, not of local prices, which this model holds constant.
Why is required gross income above the outlay in a state with no income tax?
Federal income tax and FICA are levied irrespective of state of residence, so the gross-up factor has a floor set by the federal marginal rate plus the employee-side payroll tax. Removing the state layer reduces the wedge; it cannot eliminate it. Alaska's requirement is $43.
What is the purchase-tax component in Alaska?
The representative combined state-and-local rate is about 1.82%, applied to the taxable outlay. ⚠️ Local sourcing means the effective rate varies by point of sale within Alaska; the figure here is representative, not jurisdiction-specific.
How far is Alaska from the opposite end of the national range?
Alaska occupies a terminal position in the national distribution at $43 of required gross income. ⚠️ The pre-tax outlay is held constant across states, so this is an extreme of tax treatment and not of local prices.
How is the state ranking on this purchase constructed?
States are ordered DESCENDING by required gross income at a constant pre-tax outlay — first place is the most expensive — and Alaska occupies position 43. ⛔ The ranking is not a cost-of-living measure — regional price variation is deliberately excluded so the tax effect is isolable.
How does recurrence interact with the state differential?
The state differential is multiplicative in the number of occurrences. For a monthly outlay the annualised gap equals the per-occurrence gap times the periods per year, which is why recurring categories separate states far more sharply than one-off purchases of the same nominal value.
What falls outside the model for this category?
The category declaration records at least one component outside the model's scope. It is excluded from the computation rather than estimated, in line with the project's rule against unsourced figures; the reported requirement of $43 is therefore a lower bound on total cost.
Keep going
What you must earn to buy it
A $75,000 salary
| Sticker price | $30.00 |
|---|---|
| Sales taxStatewide average | $0.00 |
| Out of pocket | $30.00 |
| Income tax on earning it | $12.64 |
| Hours of work | 1.2 hr |
29.64% of that pay never reaches the purchase.
Show your work
A $75,000 salary
| PriceWhat you typed | $30.00 |
|---|---|
| Sales tax0% · Statewide average | $0.00 |
| Out of pocketPrice plus sales tax | $30.00 |
| Federal, next dollarIRS brackets, 2026 | 22% |
| Social Security and MedicareFICA rates, 2026 | 7.65% |
| State, next dollarAK brackets, 2026 | 0% |
| Pay you must earnWalked up your own bracket boundaries | $42.64 |
| Tax on earning itPay needed, less out of pocket | $12.64 |
If the money stayed put
A $75,000 salary
| Spent today | $30 |
|---|---|
| Growth given up | $24 |
| Pay needed to buy it | $43 |
Assumes a 6% annual return that you can edit.