Reading Your Paycheck: Where the Money Goes Before You See It

Take a $75,000 salary paid every two weeks, which is 26 paychecks a year. Gross pay per check is $75,000 ÷ 26 = $2,884.62. Everything that follows comes out of that figure. If you're paid twice a month instead, it's 24 checks and a slightly larger gross amount each time, though the annual totals work out the same.

Social Security takes 6.2% of your pay, which is $178.85 on this check. Medicare takes 1.45%, another $41.83. Together that's the 7.65% you'll see labeled FICA, $220.67 here. These percentages don't depend on your filing status or your W-4. Social Security stops applying once your earnings pass an annual cap that the Social Security Administration adjusts each year, which most people never reach. Your employer pays a matching amount on top, and it never appears on your stub.

Say you put 5% into a traditional 401(k). That's $144.23 per check. It reduces the income your federal income tax is calculated on, but Social Security and Medicare are still taken from the full gross amount, so the $220.67 above doesn't shrink. A Roth 401(k) works the other way around: it doesn't lower your income tax now, in exchange for tax-free withdrawals later. The 401(k) calculator shows what these contributions add up to over time.

This is the line people can least predict, because it depends on your W-4 and on everything else in your tax situation. As a rough illustration, assume a single filer taking the 2026 standard deduction of $16,100. Start with $75,000, subtract the $3,750 you put into the 401(k) over the year and the $16,100 deduction, and you have about $55,150 of taxable income. Run that through the 2026 brackets and the federal tax comes to about $6,845 for the year, or roughly $263.27 per paycheck. The income tax calculator will do the same for your own taxable income.

Gross pay of $2,884.62, minus $220.67 for Social Security and Medicare, minus $144.23 for the 401(k), minus $263.27 for federal income tax, leaves about $2,256.44 per paycheck. That's roughly 78% of gross. Health insurance premiums, state and local income tax and any other deductions come out of that as well, so a real take-home figure is often lower, sometimes by a few hundred dollars a month. The paycheck calculator and the take-home pay calculator let you plug in your own deductions.

What your employer withholds is an estimate built from your W-4. At tax time it's compared with what you actually owe, and the difference becomes your refund or your bill. A large refund means you lent the government money, interest-free, all year. A bill means too little was withheld. If either one surprises you, updating your W-4 is how you fix it.

Biweekly pay means 26 checks, but there are only 12 months, so two months each year contain three paychecks. Budget from the 26-check total rather than from a three-check month, or you'll end up planning around money that doesn't arrive every month.