Prescription refill in California
At $75,000 income
$48
Rank among states we cover
2 of 51
vs. national median
+6%
California sits at the expensive end of this comparison: 2 of 51 states where a prescription refill can be computed with the same assumptions, at about $48 of gross income on a $75,000 salary. Being at the edge of the range is the point of this page — the states in the middle differ from each other by less than most people's rounding, but the ends differ from each other by real money. This purchase is taxed at Los Angeles County's 10.25% rate.
Hawaii costs about the same for a prescription refill
Prices in California
Everyday prices in California run 12.58% above the national average. Goods, the things you buy off a shelf, run 7.53% above average, lower than prices overall. That puts it at 1 on the price ladder, where first is the most expensive. A hundred dollars of average American shopping costs $113 $112.58 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 California.
BEA regional price parity, all items: about 12.58% above the national level, rank 1 by price level, most expensive first. Goods parity: about 7.53% above. A national-average basket costing one hundred dollars costs $113 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 California 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)38%$18
- Prescription refill62%$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 | $18.11 | 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:
CA - Sales tax county:
Los Angeles County - 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
$5,773 over 10 yrsPrescription refill, every month — $577 of income every year, and 16 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
37.65% 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
CA is #50 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.
- $43
- Californiayou$48
- $49
Choose a state name to compare against somewhere else.
Where every dollar goes
38% never reaches youThe $48.11 you must earn, followed to where it lands. Select a band to isolate it.
- Federal income tax$10.58
- FICA (Social Security + Medicare)$3.68
- CA income tax$3.85
- 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 61%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 California
This is the actual computation, not a mock-up: the chain the calculator walks for a single filer earning $75,000 in California, in the 2026 tax year. Every row can be checked against the last.
| 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. |
| California taxable income | $69,294 | After California's own deduction, which differs from the federal one. |
| California income tax | −$2,928 | Marginal rate on the next dollar earned here: 8.00%. |
| Take-home pay | $58,665 | $16,335 withheld — 21.78% of the salary never reaches you. |
This is why the price on the tag is never the cost. To spend a dollar you must first earn roughly 1.28 of them — and that multiplier is what the calculator applies to every purchase on this page.
What's different about California
- On income tax California sits in the middle: about 3.9% at this salary, rank 20. No great advantage, no great penalty.
- Sales tax in Los Angeles County comes to about 10.25% combined — among the highest anywhere. On a prescription refill, that sits on top of the price. And you had to earn extra to afford the price first.
- For a prescription refill, California is one of the most expensive states in the country — rank 2. It takes $48 of gross income here, against $43 in Alaska. That gap, $5.47, is what your address costs you on this one purchase.
- Hawaii lands closest to California here, at $48 — only $0.32 between them. Two states that look nothing alike can still end up a few dollars apart.
- California's effective state income tax at the representative salary is about 3.9%, ranking 20 nationally — mid-distribution, with neither the structural advantage of a no-tax state nor the drag of a top-decile one.
- Combined state and local sales tax in Los Angeles County is about 10.25%, placing California in the top decile nationally. The charge applies to a price that has itself already been grossed up through the earn side, so the two layers compound rather than add.
- California ranks 2 nationally for a prescription refill, requiring $48 of gross income against $43 in Alaska at the low end. The $5.47 spread is attributable to jurisdiction alone, holding the purchase itself constant.
- On this purchase Hawaii is California's nearest neighbor at $48, separated by $0.32. The convergence is a property of the composed stack rather than of similar tax policy — offsetting income and sales treatments frequently produce near-identical totals.
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 Los Angeles County 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 Los Angeles County as a representative jurisdiction for California. 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 does this cost more in California than in most states?
Two things stack. The register charges its own tax here, and the salary behind that spending is taxed before you ever see it. Put together, California needs $48 of earnings — $2.56 more than the middle state.
How much of this is sales tax?
It lands at about 10.25% at the register, depending on the exact address. Rates move across town lines, so treat it as the working figure rather than the final one.
Where in the country is this cheapest?
Moving this purchase to Alaska, the lightest state, would spare you $5.47. Moving it to Oregon, the heaviest, would add $0.59.
What does California's ranking on this actually mean?
It means California places 2 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?
Something, and the page says what. This category names a cost we do not model, so treat the figure as a floor rather than a full account — it is the part we can source, not the whole bill.
What drives California above the national median on this purchase?
Required gross income is the outlay grossed up by the combined marginal wedge — federal, FICA and state income tax — with purchase taxes applied to the outlay itself. California exceeds the national median because it is above average on at least one of those layers; the resulting requirement is $48, a premium of $2.56.
What is the purchase-tax component in California?
The representative combined state-and-local rate is about 10.25%, applied to the taxable outlay. ⚠️ Local sourcing means the effective rate varies by point of sale within California; the figure here is representative, not jurisdiction-specific.
What is the national spread on this purchase?
Against Alaska at the light end, California carries $5.47 of additional gross requirement; against Oregon at the heavy end it is $0.59 lighter. ⚠️ The model holds the pre-tax outlay constant across states, so the spread reflects tax structure alone and not regional price levels.
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 California occupies position 2. ⛔ 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 $48 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 taxLos Angeles County | $0.00 |
| Out of pocket | $30.00 |
| Income tax on earning it | $18.11 |
| Hours of work | 1.3 hr |
37.64% of that pay never reaches the purchase.
Show your work
A $75,000 salary
| PriceWhat you typed | $30.00 |
|---|---|
| Sales tax0% · Los Angeles County | $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 dollarCA brackets, 2026 | 8% |
| Pay you must earnWalked up your own bracket boundaries | $48.11 |
| Tax on earning itPay needed, less out of pocket | $18.11 |
If the money stayed put
A $75,000 salary
| Spent today | $30 |
|---|---|
| Growth given up | $24 |
| Pay needed to buy it | $48 |
Assumes a 6% annual return that you can edit.