Pay Raise Calculator

How it works

The new salary is your current salary plus the raise. Whichever way you enter the raise, the calculator also works out the other forms, so a dollar raise shows its percentage and a new salary shows the raise it implies.

Every extra dollar of a raise is taxed at your marginal rate, not your average rate, because it lands on top of the income you already have. The after-tax raise takes off your federal marginal rate, 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare, and your state rate, then divides by your number of paychecks.

The real raise compares the raise with inflation. Dividing (1 + raise) by (1 + inflation) gives how much more your new salary can buy than your old one did; a raise smaller than inflation is a pay cut in purchasing power.

Formula

new salary        = current × (1 + raise %)       or current + raise $
raise %           = raise $ ÷ current
after-tax raise   = raise $ × (1 − federal marginal − 7.65% FICA − state rate)
per paycheck      = after-tax raise ÷ paychecks per year
real raise        = (1 + raise %) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1
real raise $      = current × real raise

Example

A 4% raise on $60,000 is $2,400, for a new salary of $62,400. At a 22% federal marginal rate, 7.65% FICA and a 5% state rate, you keep 65.35% of it: $1,568.40 a year, or $60.32 per paycheck paid every two weeks.

With 3% inflation the real raise is 1.04 ÷ 1.03 − 1 = 0.97%, worth about $582.52 a year in today's dollars.

Assumptions and limitations

• This is an estimate for planning. It is for informational and educational purposes and is not financial, tax or legal advice.
• The whole raise is taxed at the one marginal rate you pick. A raise that pushes income into the next bracket is taxed partly at the higher rate, so the after-tax figure is slightly high in that case.
• Social Security and Medicare are taken at 7.65% on the whole raise. Above the year's Social Security wage base ($184,500 in 2026) the 6.2% part no longer applies, and above $200,000 of wages ($250,000 married filing jointly, $125,000 married filing separately) an extra 0.9% Medicare tax does; neither is modelled.
• Pre-tax deductions that scale with pay, such as a 401(k) percentage, are not modelled; they lower the raise in each paycheck but also lower its income tax.
• Credits and deductions that phase out with income can make the true marginal rate higher than the bracket rate.
• Inflation is an assumption you enter, not a forecast. The real raise is measured against your current salary's purchasing power over one year.

Frequently asked questions