What Cooks, Fast Food earn in Maricopa County, AZ
If you are weighing a move or a job offer, start with $33,190: the median annual pay for Cooks, Fast Food in Maricopa County, AZ. Spread over a standard 2,080-hour work year, that is $15.96 an hour. Because the wage survey covers the whole Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ metropolitan area, the number reflects employers across the region rather than a single town or a single company.
The mean wage is $33,920, which is 2.2% above the median, so pay is spread fairly evenly. The survey counts about 7,900 people working in this occupation across the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ metropolitan area, so the estimate rests on a substantial pool of workers. Maricopa County, AZ has roughly 4,559,748 residents, according to the population figures used by the rent data.
The salary range, from entry level to top earners
Pay for Cooks, Fast Food in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ metropolitan area is not one number. The lowest-paid tenth of workers earn up to $30,960 a year ($14.88 an hour), while the highest-paid tenth earn $36,690 or more ($17.64 an hour). That is a gap of $5,730 between the bottom and the top of the scale. The middle half of workers falls between $31,400 at the 25th percentile and $35,610 at the 75th percentile. A top-tier earner makes 1.2 times what someone at the bottom makes, so experience, certification and employer all matter.
What the hourly rate looks like
Converted to an hourly wage, the median for Cooks, Fast Food in Maricopa County, AZ is $15.96. A full-time schedule of 40 hours for 52 weeks adds up to $33,190, and the same salary is $2,766 a month before taxes or about $1,277 per biweekly pay period. After taxes the same job pays $13.63 per hour of take-home income, which is the number that actually has to cover rent and groceries.
About this occupation: Cooks, Fast Food
The U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET database describes the work of Cooks, Fast Food this way: "Prepare and cook food in a fast food restaurant with a limited menu. Duties of these cooks are limited to preparation of a few basic items and normally involve operating large-volume single-purpose cooking equipment."
Core tasks recorded by O*NET include: "Maintain sanitation, health, and safety standards in work areas"; "Clean food preparation areas, cooking surfaces, and utensils"; "Operate large-volume cooking equipment, such as grills, deep-fat fryers, or griddles"; "Verify that prepared food meets requirements for quality and quantity".
Job outlook for Cooks, Fast Food
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects national employment in this occupation to grow from 640,500 jobs in 2025 to 644,100 in 2035, a change of +0.6%, slower than the 3.5% projected for all occupations. The projection counts 86,400 openings a year on average, including positions created by growth and positions left by workers who retire or move to another occupation; that equals 13.5% of current employment each year.
Typical entry-level education: no formal educational credential. Typical on-the-job training to reach competency: short-term on-the-job training. BLS lists a national median annual wage of $30,890 for this occupation; the Maricopa County, AZ median of $33,190 is 7.4% above it.
How pay in Maricopa County, AZ compares
Compared with the Arizona average
Maricopa County, AZ pays above the state benchmark. The Arizona employment-weighted average for Cooks, Fast Food is $32,737; the local median of $33,190 beats it by $453, or 1.4%. Within Arizona, Maricopa County, AZ already has the highest median we track for this job.
Compared with the national average
The national employment-weighted average for Cooks, Fast Food is $31,678 across the contiguous United States. At $33,190, Maricopa County, AZ pays $1,512 more, which is 4.8% above that benchmark. Keep in mind that a higher salary only helps if living costs do not rise faster, which is why the cost sections below matter as much as the headline number.
Where this job ranks in Maricopa County, AZ
Among the 553 occupations with published wages in Maricopa County, AZ, Cooks, Fast Food ranks number 552 by median pay, ahead of about 0% of them. The best-paying occupation we track here is Computer and Information Systems Managers at $169,720 a year, which is $136,530 more than the median for Cooks, Fast Food.
From gross pay to take-home pay
A salary of $33,190 does not arrive in full. We model a single filer with wage income only, the standard deduction and tax-year 2025 rules, and we keep the three tax layers apart: federal income tax, FICA (Social Security and Medicare) and state income tax. Together they take $4,848 a year, which leaves $28,342, or $2,362 a month.
Put another way, of every $100 earned, about $15 goes to taxes and $85 reaches the paycheck. The overall effective tax rate is 14.6%.
Federal income tax
After the $15,750 standard deduction, taxable income is $17,440. Federal brackets are marginal, so only the slice of income above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate; the last dollars of this salary fall in the 12% bracket. The resulting federal income tax is $1,854, an effective 5.6% of gross pay, well below the 12% marginal rate because the lower brackets are cheaper.
Social Security and Medicare (FICA)
Payroll taxes are a flat percentage of wages. Social Security takes 6.2% up to a wage base of $176,100, which costs $2,058 on this salary. Medicare takes 1.45%, or $481. FICA totals $2,539, which is 7.7% of gross pay.
State income tax in Arizona
Arizona income tax on this salary is $455 a year, or 1.4% of gross pay, after the state's own deductions and exemptions are applied. That is 25% of the federal income tax bill, and it comes out to $38 a month. Local taxes such as county or city income taxes are not included, so a few jurisdictions may withhold slightly more.
A cross-check with IRS data for Maricopa County, AZ
IRS Statistics of Income data for Maricopa County, AZ show an average adjusted gross income of $99,642 per return and an average effective federal income tax rate of 14.9% across all filers. Filers in the $25,000 to under $50,000 bracket, where this salary falls, paid an average of 5.2%, compared with the 5.6% estimated here for a single filer taking the standard deduction. Gaps between the two reflect filing status, dependents, credits and other income, none of which a single-person wage estimate includes.
Cost of living in Maricopa County, AZ
Take-home pay only means something next to what life costs. We price four basics for one adult in Maricopa County, AZ: a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline. All of them are converted to annual figures first, then compared with the $28,342 of take-home pay.
Rent
The HUD Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Maricopa County, AZ is $1,493 a month, or $17,916 a year. A two-bedroom costs $1,734 a month. For Cooks, Fast Food, a one-bedroom absorbs 63.2% of take-home pay and 54.0% of gross pay.
Food
The USDA Thrifty Food Plan (August 2026) puts the cost of a nutritious home-cooked diet for an adult at about $3,436 a year, which is $286 a month or $66.07 a week. That equals 10.4% of gross pay for Cooks, Fast Food in Maricopa County, AZ. It is a thrifty budget with no restaurant meals, so treat it as a floor.
Energy and gasoline
Using Arizona residential prices from the Energy Information Administration and national household averages for consumption, electricity costs about $1,575 a year and other home energy such as natural gas about $812, for $2,387 in total. Gasoline in Arizona averages $3.80 per gallon; at about 463 gallons a year (11,106 miles at 24 miles per gallon) fuel adds $1,759.
What is left over
Add the four basics together and living costs come to $25,498 a year, 90% of take-home pay. That leaves $2,844 a year, or $237 a month, for savings, transportation beyond fuel, health care, debt and everything else. That margin equals 8.6% of gross pay, a thin cushion that one unexpected expense could erase.
Local housing and commute data for Maricopa County, AZ
The budget above covers rent, food, energy and gasoline. Three more local facts shape what a paycheck buys in Maricopa County, AZ: property taxes, housing prices and the daily commute. The figures below are exact U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates for Maricopa County, AZ, set beside the Arizona and national medians.
Property taxes in Maricopa County, AZ
Homeowners in Maricopa County, AZ pay a median of $1,983 a year in real estate taxes, 6% above the Arizona median of $1,879 and 36% below the U.S. median of $3,119. Against a median home value of $452,800, the median tax bill is 0.44% of that value (the ratio of the two county medians). For a worker paid the local Cooks, Fast Food median of $33,190, a tax bill of that size would equal 6.0% of gross pay, which matters for anyone planning to buy rather than rent.
Rents, home prices and household income in Maricopa County, AZ
Renters in Maricopa County, AZ pay a median gross rent of $1,708 a month in the Census survey, 11% above the Arizona median of $1,543. HUD's Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment, which this site uses in the budget, is $1,493 a month; the two measures differ because the Census figure covers units of every size that renters already occupy, while the HUD figure is a one-bedroom benchmark. The median value of an owner-occupied home is $452,800, 15% above the Arizona median of $394,500. Median household income is $89,300, 12% above the Arizona median of $79,964, so a year of one-bedroom Fair Market Rent equals 20.1% of that income.
Commuting in Maricopa County, AZ
Workers in Maricopa County, AZ who travel to a workplace spend an average of 26.0 minutes each way, 2% above the Arizona average of 25.4. For someone who commutes five days a week, that is 4.3 hours of round-trip travel every week, a cost the budget does not price. 20.8% of workers in Maricopa County, AZ work from home, compared with 15.1% nationally, which removes the commute for them.
Can Cooks, Fast Food afford to live in Maricopa County, AZ?
The 30% rent guideline
A common rule of thumb says rent should stay under 30% of gross income. For a gross salary of $33,190 that ceiling is $830 a month. The one-bedroom Fair Market Rent of $1,493 is $663 over it, so rent breaks the guideline. Put as a wage, covering a one-bedroom at the 30% guideline takes $28.71 an hour; the median for Cooks, Fast Food is $15.96, which is 44% below that mark. Another way to see it: at $13.63 of take-home pay an hour, a one-bedroom takes about 25.3 working hours every week.
Splitting a two-bedroom
Sharing a two-bedroom at $1,734 a month means $867 each. Compared with renting a one-bedroom alone, that saves $7,512 a year. With a roommate, the yearly margin after the basics becomes $10,356.
How fast you can save
At $237 a month of margin, building a $10,000 emergency fund would take about 43 months (3.6 years). Setting aside half of the margin stretches the same goal to about 86 months. These figures ignore interest, raises and any spending beyond the four basics.
Frequently asked questions about Cooks, Fast Food pay in Maricopa County, AZ
What is the hourly wage for Cooks, Fast Food in Maricopa County, AZ?
The median is $15.96 per hour, based on $33,190 a year over 2,080 hours. Hourly pay runs from about $14.88 at the 10th percentile to $17.64 at the 90th percentile.
What is the take-home pay for Cooks, Fast Food in Maricopa County, AZ?
After federal income tax, FICA and state income tax, the median salary of $33,190 becomes $28,342 a year. That is $2,362 a month, $1,090 every two weeks or $545 a week.
What percentage of pay goes to taxes for Cooks, Fast Food in Maricopa County, AZ?
Total taxes are $4,848 a year, an effective rate of 14.6%: $1,854 federal income tax, $2,539 FICA and $455 Arizona income tax.
Is pay for Cooks, Fast Food in Maricopa County, AZ above the Arizona average?
Yes. The local median of $33,190 is +1.4% versus the Arizona average of $32,737, a difference of $453 a year.
Is a one-bedroom rent affordable on the median Cooks, Fast Food salary in Maricopa County, AZ?
A one-bedroom costs $1,493 a month against take-home pay of $2,362, which is 63.2% of take-home pay. That does not meet the 30%-of-gross guideline, which allows up to $830 a month.
How much is left after rent, food and energy for Cooks, Fast Food in Maricopa County, AZ?
About $237 a month ($2,844 a year) remains after a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline, which together cost $25,498 a year.
What hourly wage covers a one-bedroom in Maricopa County, AZ at the 30% guideline?
$28.71 an hour for a full-time schedule, calculated as the $17,916 annual rent divided by 0.30 and by 2,080 hours. The median for Cooks, Fast Food is $15.96.
How we calculated these numbers
Wages are May 2025 medians from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ metropolitan area; hourly-only values are annualized at 2,080 hours. Rents are HUD Fair Market Rents, food costs come from the USDA Thrifty Food Plan, and energy prices come from the Energy Information Administration. County-level tax statistics come from the IRS Statistics of Income.
Taxes use tax-year 2025 federal brackets, FICA rates and the Arizona rules for a single filer with wage income only. Figures are estimates for planning and comparison, not tax or financial advice, and they exclude local income taxes, benefits, retirement contributions and individual circumstances.