WageYardAfter-Tax Pay Calculator
Gross pay is the number on the offer letter; take-home is the number that pays rent. Here is how WageYard estimates the distance between them — and exactly where the estimate is allowed to be wrong.
What the estimate includes (and excludes)
Every after-tax figure on this site applies two subtractions to your annual gross:
Federal (rough) = 12% × (gross − $16,100 standard deduction)
Deliberately excluded: state and local income tax (nine states have none, others run into the high single digits — a generic average would be wrong almost everywhere), payroll elections like 401(k) and HSA contributions, the child tax credit and other credits, and the graduated federal brackets themselves. The single-12% approximation understates tax at the very bottom and can wobble mid-range; typical effective federal+FICA rates reported for single filers land roughly in the 10–22% zone across $30k–$120k, which is the band our model tracks.
Effective rates at typical incomes
| Annual gross | FICA | Federal (est.) | Take-home | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $30,000 | $2,295 | $1,668 | $26,037 | 13.2% |
| $40,000 | $3,060 | $2,868 | $34,072 | 14.8% |
| $50,000 | $3,825 | $4,068 | $42,107 | 15.8% |
| $70,000 | $5,355 | $6,468 | $58,177 | 16.9% |
| $100,000 | $7,650 | $10,068 | $82,282 | 17.7% |
| $120,000 | $9,180 | $12,468 | $98,352 | 18.0% |
Run your own numbers in the calculator
Where estimates go wrong
Three situations where your real paycheck will not match: a working spouse filing jointly (the model uses a single deduction), significant pre-tax 401(k) contributions (which shrink the tax base), and overtime-heavy years where several thousand dollars land in a higher bracket mid-year. If one of those is you, treat our number as the optimistic end and check a withholding estimator or your actual pay stub from last spring.
Related guides
$25/hour after tax
$42,107 estimated take-home.
$30/hour after tax
$50,142 estimated take-home.
$100k after tax
~$82k take-home, per hour too.