What comes out of a US paycheck
Four things stand between your salary and your bank account, and only one of them is what most people mean by "taxes".
Federal income tax is progressive: it applies in brackets to your income after the standard deduction, so the rate on your last dollar is higher than your overall rate. Social Security takes 6.2% of wages, but only up to an annual wage base — above that, it stops for the year. Medicare takes 1.45% on every dollar with no cap, plus an additional 0.9% on wages above a threshold that depends on your filing status. State income tax varies enormously: nine states levy none at all, several use a single flat rate, and the rest run their own brackets, standard deductions and credits.
Your employer pays a matching 6.2% and 1.45% for Social Security and Medicare alongside you. That employer half never appears on your pay stub, but it is part of what your labour costs — which is why self-employed people, who pay both halves as self-employment tax, feel the difference so sharply.
Why no-income-tax states are not automatically better
Texas and Florida take nothing in state income tax, and on a paycheck calculator that looks decisive. It is a real advantage, but states fund themselves one way or another. States without an income tax typically lean harder on property tax, sales tax, or resource revenue. Texas in particular has some of the highest effective property tax rates in the country, which lands on homeowners rather than on paychecks.
So a paycheck comparison across states answers a narrower question than it appears to. If you are weighing a move or a job offer, the state income tax line is one input; property tax on the home you would buy, sales tax on what you spend, and cost of living generally can easily outweigh it. Compare total cost, not just the deduction.
Filing status changes more than people expect
Married filing jointly uses wider brackets and a larger standard deduction than single filing. For a household with one earner, that difference is substantial — the same salary can face a noticeably lower effective rate. For two earners with similar incomes the benefit largely disappears, because the joint brackets are roughly double the single ones. Each state calculator here lets you toggle filing status so you can see the effect on your own numbers rather than reasoning about it in the abstract.
What these calculators do not include
They model standard W-2 wages with the standard deduction. They do not model local or city income taxes, state disability or paid-family-leave premiums, pre-tax benefit deductions such as health premiums or HSA contributions, itemized deductions, or state-specific credits. Your employer's withholding also follows the IRS tables and your Form W-4 rather than a year-end calculation, so your actual pay stub will differ somewhat and true up when you file. Our methodology page sets out the full list.
Canadian too?
If you work in Canada, or you are comparing an offer on each side of the border, our Canadian take-home pay calculators apply federal and provincial tax, CPP, CPP2 and EI, and our guides explain how the Canadian system differs — starting with the fact that Canadian payroll deductions are capped and stop partway through the year.