In PowerShell, how can I test if a variable holds a numeric value?

Modify your filter like this:

filter isNumeric {
    [Helpers]::IsNumeric($_)
}

function uses the $input variable to contain pipeline information whereas the filter uses the special variable $_ that contains the current pipeline object.

Edit:

For a powershell syntax way you can use just a filter (w/o add-type):

filter isNumeric($x) {
    return $x -is [byte]  -or $x -is [int16]  -or $x -is [int32]  -or $x -is [int64]  `
       -or $x -is [sbyte] -or $x -is [uint16] -or $x -is [uint32] -or $x -is [uint64] `
       -or $x -is [float] -or $x -is [double] -or $x -is [decimal]
}

You can check whether the variable is a number like this: $val -is [int]

This will work for numeric values, but not if the number is wrapped in quotes:

1 -is [int]
True
"1" -is [int]
False

If you are testing a string for a numeric value then you can use the a regular expression and the -match comparison. Otherwise Christian's answer is a good solution for type checking.

function Is-Numeric ($Value) {
    return $Value -match "^[\d\.]+$"
}

Is-Numeric 1.23
True
Is-Numeric 123
True
Is-Numeric ""
False
Is-Numeric "asdf123"
False