2026 employer cost estimate

What this wage actually costs you

Every other calculator here answers what an employee takes home. This one flips the question: employer FICA, FUTA, and state SUTA where it's verified — for the person signing the paycheck, not receiving it.

Why this is "employer payroll cost," not "total cost of employment"

The larger phrase implies workers' compensation too, and this site has no workers' comp data at all — no rate table, no class codes, no per-state file. Modeling it accurately means fifty-one states' own rate schedules, keyed to industry classification, which is a research project on the scale of the site's original withholding corpus, not something to bolt onto one page. Naming the gap explicitly is more honest than a total that quietly omits a real and often substantial cost.

What is actually modeled

Employer-side Social Security (6.2%, capped at the annual wage base) and Medicare (1.45%, uncapped, with no employer-side additional Medicare surtax — that 0.9% is employee-only). Federal unemployment tax (FUTA) at the standard 0.6% net rate, capped at its own, much lower wage base. State unemployment insurance (SUTA) at the new-employer rate, for the 29 states this site has traced to a primary source — shown as "Not verified," never as zero, everywhere else.