Methodology

What we include

• Employer Social Security: 6.20% up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500.
• Employer Medicare: 1.45% of all wages, no cap.
• FUTA: 0.6% net on the first $7,000, plus any state FUTA credit reduction.
• State unemployment (SUI/SUTA): the state's wage base × rate. We default to the new-employer rate; you can override it with your own experience rate.
• State-specific employer taxes: e.g. CA ETT, WA PFML employer share, NY MCTMT.
• Workers' compensation: an adjustable estimate for a low-risk office class.
• Benefits (optional): off by default; you set a percentage.

What we exclude (and why)

We exclude employee-side withholdings— California SDI, WA Cares, New York PFL, and income-tax withholding. These come out of the employee's pay; they are not an employer cost, so adding them would overstate what hiring costs you. We also exclude the 0.9% Additional Medicare tax, which employers withhold but do not match.

Estimates vs. exact figures

Statutory rates (FICA, FUTA, SUI wage bases, state levies) are exact 2026 values. Two inputs are necessarily estimates and are flagged est. in results: your SUI experience rate (employer-specific) and workers' comp (set by your carrier and class). Adjust both to your real numbers for a precise figure. Hourly figures assume 2,080 work hours per year.

How we verify the data

Every number passes three checks before it ships:

1. Two sources each — a primary issuer (IRS, SSA, US-DOL, or the state agency) plus one independent source.
2. Automated math gate — a build-time script recomputes every dollar example and structural invariant; a mismatch fails the build.
3. Independent re-derivation — high-impact figures are re-researched from scratch and diffed against the stored values.

The full citation list is on the sources page. We re-verify every January (US state rates reset) and after the November FUTA credit-reduction determination.