Pay raise calculator after taxes
A raise is taxed at your marginal rate, not your average one, so the extra you actually keep is smaller than the headline number. Enter your salary and your raise to see what lands in your paycheck.
Federal tax, Social Security and Medicare are modelled bracket by bracket, so those parts are exact. Texas has no wage income tax, so the state part is exact too.
What the raise adds to each line
Every line moves when the gross moves. These are the changes, not the totals.
Was it a good raise
Two numbers decide that, and neither one is on the calculators above this page.
A 4% raise is above that average by 0.9 points, and ahead of inflation by 0.5 points. So it holds its value in real terms.
Both figures are the ones BLS publishes, not estimates made here. See the BLS Employment Cost Index and the BLS Consumer Price Index.
Where your new salary sits
Average annual pay from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, so you can see whether the new number is above or below what people around you are actually paid.
| Area | Average annual pay |
|---|---|
| New York | $99,949 |
| California | $96,946 |
| United States | $78,722 |
| Texas | $77,995 |
| Florida | $72,770 |
Your new salary of $67,600 is below the national average of $78,722.
BLS QCEW, 2025 release, all industries and all ownerships.
Why the raise shrinks
The last dollars of a raise are taxed harder than the first.
Only the new slice of income is taxed at the higher rate. Moving into a bracket never makes your whole salary more expensive, and it never leaves you worse off. But the take-home gain still trails the gross gain, every time.
Four things can make that gap jump. A federal bracket edge. The Social Security wage base, where those contributions stop. The additional Medicare threshold, where an extra 0.9% starts. And a state bracket, if your state has them. A raise that steps over one of these behaves nothing like a raise that doesn't, which is why a flat percentage estimate misleads exactly where it matters most.
Common questions
Does a raise ever leave me worse off
No. Only the dollars above a bracket edge are taxed at the higher rate, so crossing one never costs you more than it pays. The myth comes from people watching the take-home gain come in smaller than the gross gain, which is a different thing.
Why is my marginal rate lower on a big salary
Social Security stops at the wage base. Once your salary clears it, that 6.2% no longer applies to the next dollar, so the share of a raise you keep goes up. Try $180,000 in the calculator and watch the rate on the raise fall.
Is this the same as a pay rise calculator
Same thing, different wording. The difference here is that this one runs the whole paycheck twice and shows the after-tax gain, rather than multiplying your salary by a percentage and stopping there.
What this leaves out
The result is an estimate, not tax advice. It excludes pre-tax deductions such as a 401(k) or HSA, local and city taxes, credits, and anything specific to your employer's payroll. For states with graduated brackets the state portion is carried as one labelled effective rate, so treat that part as an approximation and the federal, Social Security and Medicare parts as exact.