About RaiseCalculator

RaiseCalculator is a single-purpose tool: work out what a pay raise is actually worth. Not just the new salary, but the change in each paycheck, the share that survives tax, and what it is worth once inflation is counted. Most raise calculators answer the first question and stop.

How the calculations work

Everything runs in your browser. No salary figure you type is sent to a server, stored, or logged — the arithmetic happens locally, which is why the page works offline once loaded and why the "Share link" button encodes your inputs in the URL rather than in a database.

Pay period conversions use the standard US assumptions: 52 weeks a year, 26 bi-weekly pay periods, 24 semi-monthly, 12 monthly, and 2,080 hours for a 40-hour week. Tax on a raise is calculated marginally — total tax on the new salary minus total tax on the old — because that is the amount the raise actually costs you.

Where the numbers come from

• Federal tax brackets and standard deduction (2026): IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32. Published figures.
• Social Security wage base (2026): $184,500, from the Social Security Administration.
• State income tax rates: Tax Foundation, State Individual Income Tax Rates and Brackets, 2026. Only no-tax and flat-rate states are modelled; graduated-bracket states are flagged and excluded rather than approximated.
• Inflation: CPI-U, all items, not seasonally adjusted, 12 months ending July 2026, from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• Salary increase budgets: published surveys from WorldatWork, Mercer, Payscale and WTW.

Every figure is stored with the date it was checked and a link to its source. The tax data is reviewed each January when the IRS and SSA publish new amounts, and the inflation figure is updated as new CPI releases come out. This page was last reviewed on 2026-09-02.

What this tool is not

It is not a payroll calculator and not a tax return. It estimates the marginal tax on a raise using standard deductions and published rates; it does not model itemised deductions, tax credits, local income taxes, pre-tax benefits other than a simple percentage deduction, or the way your employer chooses to withhold. Your actual paycheck depends on your W-4 and your employer's payroll settings, and will differ.

Nothing here is tax, legal or financial advice. For decisions that matter, talk to someone licensed to advise you.

Corrections

If a figure looks wrong, it may well be — rates change and sources get revised. Corrections are welcome at [email protected], and they get fixed.