What Substitute Teachers, Short-Term earn in Denton County, TX
According to the latest federal wage data for the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX metropolitan area, the median pay for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term in Denton County, TX is $34,270 a year, or $16.48 an hour. After federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare (and no state income tax), the paycheck shrinks to $29,664 a year, and rent, food and energy take another bite. The sections below walk through each step with the actual math for Denton County, TX.
The mean wage is $36,390, which is 6.2% above the median, a sign that a group of high earners lifts the average. The survey counts about 8,050 people working in this occupation across the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX metropolitan area, so the estimate rests on a substantial pool of workers. Denton County, TX has roughly 979,561 residents, according to the population figures used by the rent data.
The salary range, from entry level to top earners
Pay for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX metropolitan area is not one number. The lowest-paid tenth of workers earn up to $28,020 a year ($13.47 an hour), while the highest-paid tenth earn $44,960 or more ($21.62 an hour). That is a gap of $16,940 between the bottom and the top of the scale. The middle half of workers falls between $30,810 at the 25th percentile and $38,520 at the 75th percentile. A top-tier earner makes 1.6 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 Substitute Teachers, Short-Term in Denton County, TX is $16.48. A full-time schedule of 40 hours for 52 weeks adds up to $34,270, and the same salary is $2,856 a month before taxes or about $1,318 per biweekly pay period. After taxes the same job pays $14.26 per hour of take-home income, which is the number that actually has to cover rent and groceries.
About this occupation: Substitute Teachers, Short-Term
The U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET database describes the work of Substitute Teachers, Short-Term this way: "Teach students on a short-term basis as a temporary replacement for a regular classroom teacher, typically using the regular teacher's lesson plan."
Core tasks recorded by O*NET include: "Answer students' questions"; "Attend professional meetings, educational conferences, or teacher training workshops to improve professional competence"; "Counsel students with adjustment or academic problems"; "Distribute or collect tests or homework assignments".
Job outlook for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects national employment in this occupation to grow from 556,100 jobs in 2025 to 567,000 in 2035, a change of +2%, slower than the 3.5% projected for all occupations. The projection counts 65,000 openings a year on average, including positions created by growth and positions left by workers who retire or move to another occupation; that equals 11.7% of current employment each year. About 5.2% of the people in this occupation are self-employed, and wage figures cover wage and salary workers only.
Typical entry-level education: bachelor's degree. BLS lists a national median annual wage of $41,670 for this occupation; the Denton County, TX median of $34,270 is 17.8% below it.
How pay in Denton County, TX compares
Compared with the Texas average
Denton County, TX pays above the state benchmark. The Texas employment-weighted average for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term is $31,647; the local median of $34,270 beats it by $2,623, or 8.3%. Within Texas, Denton County, TX already has the highest median we track for this job.
Compared with the national average
The national employment-weighted average for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term is $44,399 across the contiguous United States. At $34,270, Denton County, TX pays $10,129 less, which is 22.8% below 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 Denton County, TX
Among the 627 occupations with published wages in Denton County, TX, Substitute Teachers, Short-Term ranks number 593 by median pay, ahead of about 5% of them. The best-paying occupation we track here is Computer and Information Systems Managers at $173,810 a year, which is $139,540 more than the median for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term.
From gross pay to take-home pay
A salary of $34,270 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 $4,606 a year, which leaves $29,664, or $2,472 a month.
Put another way, of every $100 earned, about $13 goes to taxes and $87 reaches the paycheck. The overall effective tax rate is 13.4%.
Federal income tax
After the $15,750 standard deduction, taxable income is $18,520. 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 $1,984, an effective 5.8% 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 $2,125 on this salary. Medicare takes 1.45%, or $497. FICA totals $2,622, which is 7.7% of gross pay.
State income tax in Texas
There is no state income tax on wages in Texas, which means Substitute Teachers, Short-Term in Denton County, TX keep the full $29,664 left after federal and payroll taxes. For scale, a hypothetical flat 5% state tax on this salary would cost about $1,714 a year, so the absence of a state tax is worth roughly $143 a month.
A cross-check with IRS data for Denton County, TX
IRS Statistics of Income data for Denton County, TX show an average adjusted gross income of $118,678 per return and an average effective federal income tax rate of 15.5% across all filers. Filers in the $25,000 to under $50,000 bracket, where this salary falls, paid an average of 5.3%, compared with the 5.8% 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 Denton County, TX
Take-home pay only means something next to what life costs. We price four basics for one adult in Denton County, TX: a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline. All of them are converted to annual figures first, then compared with the $29,664 of take-home pay.
Rent
The HUD Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Denton County, TX is $1,536 a month, or $18,432 a year. A two-bedroom costs $1,807 a month. For Substitute Teachers, Short-Term, a one-bedroom absorbs 62.1% of take-home pay and 53.8% 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 10.0% of gross pay for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term in Denton County, TX. It is a thrifty budget with no restaurant meals, so treat it as a floor.
Energy and gasoline
Using Texas residential prices from the Energy Information Administration and national household averages for consumption, electricity costs about $1,578 a year and other home energy such as natural gas about $719, for $2,297 in total. Gasoline in Texas averages $2.88 per gallon; at about 463 gallons a year (11,106 miles at 24 miles per gallon) fuel adds $1,334.
What is left over
Add the four basics together and living costs come to $25,499 a year, 86% of take-home pay. That leaves $4,165 a year, or $347 a month, for savings, transportation beyond fuel, health care, debt and everything else. That margin equals 12.2% of gross pay, a workable but modest cushion.
Local housing and commute data for Denton County, TX
The budget above covers rent, food, energy and gasoline. Three more local facts shape what a paycheck buys in Denton County, TX: 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 Denton County, TX, set beside the Texas and national medians.
Property taxes in Denton County, TX
Homeowners in Denton County, TX pay a median of $7,055 a year in real estate taxes, 67% above the Texas median of $4,232 and 126% above the U.S. median of $3,119. Against a median home value of $437,200, the median tax bill is 1.61% of that value (the ratio of the two county medians). For a worker paid the local Substitute Teachers, Short-Term median of $34,270, a tax bill of that size would equal 20.6% of gross pay, which matters for anyone planning to buy rather than rent.
Rents, home prices and household income in Denton County, TX
Renters in Denton County, TX pay a median gross rent of $1,728 a month in the Census survey, 23% above the Texas median of $1,403. HUD's Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment, which this site uses in the budget, is $1,536 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 $437,200, 54% above the Texas median of $283,800. Median household income is $111,498, 42% above the Texas median of $78,476, so a year of one-bedroom Fair Market Rent equals 16.5% of that income.
Commuting in Denton County, TX
Workers in Denton County, TX who travel to a workplace spend an average of 28.1 minutes each way, 5% above the Texas average of 26.7. For someone who commutes five days a week, that is 4.7 hours of round-trip travel every week, a cost the budget does not price. 23.5% of workers in Denton County, TX work from home, compared with 15.1% nationally, which removes the commute for them.
Can Substitute Teachers, Short-Term afford to live in Denton County, TX?
The 30% rent guideline
A common rule of thumb says rent should stay under 30% of gross income. For a gross salary of $34,270 that ceiling is $857 a month. The one-bedroom Fair Market Rent of $1,536 is $679 over it, so rent breaks the guideline. Put as a wage, covering a one-bedroom at the 30% guideline takes $29.54 an hour; the median for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term is $16.48, which is 44% below that mark. Another way to see it: at $14.26 of take-home pay an hour, a one-bedroom takes about 24.9 working hours every week.
Splitting a two-bedroom
Sharing a two-bedroom at $1,807 a month means $904 each. Compared with renting a one-bedroom alone, that saves $7,590 a year. With a roommate, the yearly margin after the basics becomes $11,755.
How fast you can save
At $347 a month of margin, building a $10,000 emergency fund would take about 29 months (2.4 years). Setting aside half of the margin stretches the same goal to about 58 months. These figures ignore interest, raises and any spending beyond the four basics.
Frequently asked questions about Substitute Teachers, Short-Term pay in Denton County, TX
What is the hourly wage for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term in Denton County, TX?
The median is $16.48 per hour, based on $34,270 a year over 2,080 hours. Hourly pay runs from about $13.47 at the 10th percentile to $21.62 at the 90th percentile.
What is the take-home pay for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term in Denton County, TX?
After federal income tax, FICA, the median salary of $34,270 becomes $29,664 a year. That is $2,472 a month, $1,141 every two weeks or $570 a week.
What percentage of pay goes to taxes for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term in Denton County, TX?
Total taxes are $4,606 a year, an effective rate of 13.4%: $1,984 federal income tax, $2,622 FICA and no Texas income tax.
Is pay for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term in Denton County, TX above the Texas average?
Yes. The local median of $34,270 is +8.3% versus the Texas average of $31,647, a difference of $2,623 a year.
Is a one-bedroom rent affordable on the median Substitute Teachers, Short-Term salary in Denton County, TX?
A one-bedroom costs $1,536 a month against take-home pay of $2,472, which is 62.1% of take-home pay. That does not meet the 30%-of-gross guideline, which allows up to $857 a month.
How much is left after rent, food and energy for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term in Denton County, TX?
About $347 a month ($4,165 a year) remains after a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline, which together cost $25,499 a year.
What hourly wage covers a one-bedroom in Denton County, TX at the 30% guideline?
$29.54 an hour for a full-time schedule, calculated as the $18,432 annual rent divided by 0.30 and by 2,080 hours. The median for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term is $16.48.
How we calculated these numbers
Wages are May 2025 medians from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX 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 Texas 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.