Salary Calculator — See Your Take-Home Pay by State
A free salary calculator built on BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. Pick a role and a state, set your years of experience, and see the 10th-to-90th percentile band plus an estimate of what actually lands in your bank account after federal, FICA, and state taxes.
Salary Calculator — Take-Home by State
BLS-modelled percentiles + federal, FICA, and state tax math. Numbers update as you change inputs.
Add your current salary to see how it compares to the role's median in California.
Estimated Software Engineer salary in California
Median: $159,700 · 90th percentile $263,800 · 10th percentile $94,400
Gross (median)
$159,700
Federal tax
-$27,867
FICA
-$12,217
CA state tax
-$15,930
Estimated take-home pay
$103,686/yr
About $8,641/month after federal + FICA + state. Effective tax rate 35.1%.
vs national median for this role
+$27,700 (21.0%)
Want a 1:1 raise math?
Use the raise calculatorHow we calculate this
Every number above is derived from three inputs:
- National percentiles by role. The 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentile annual wages modelled on the most recent BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) release. BLS data is public domain.
- State pay index. A multiplier (0.85 – 1.21) derived from BLS state mean-wage ratios for the All Occupations group, applied to each role percentile.
- Experience curve. Workers with under 5 years scale linearly from about 70% of the median (entry-level) up to 100% at 5 years. Above 5 years, a role-specific annual premium adds 2-5.5% per year, capped at +50%.
Take-home applies federal income tax (2025-2026 single-filer brackets, standard deduction), the full FICA contribution (Social Security capped at the 2025 wage base, plus Medicare), and a state income tax estimated as 75% of the top marginal state bracket — see IRS Revenue Procedure for the federal bracket source. We do not model 401(k), HSA, married-filing-jointly, or local city taxes; expect ±2-5 percentage points of slippage in the take-home estimate.
Last updated May 18, 2026. Based on BLS OEWS public data and Tax Foundation state-bracket tables for 2025-2026.
Salary calculator by state
State tax rules, top employers, and cost-of-living shift the take-home number meaningfully. We've shipped dedicated calculator pages for the 10 largest US labour markets first; the rest will follow on the same template.
Roles covered in the calculator
30 occupations across tech, healthcare, finance, trades, and management. Need more breadth? Our international salary calculator covers 50+ roles across 8+ Western markets.
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