Read Your Pay Stub Line by Line to Find Where 7.65% of Every Check Goes

Your pay stub might be a slip of paper folded around a check or a PDF waiting in your employer’s portal. Either way, it holds two numbers you already know, gross pay and net pay, and a column of smaller lines that explain the gap between them.

Those smaller lines are worth ten minutes.

Social Security and Medicare take a combined 7.65% of most paychecks before income tax, health premiums or retirement savings come out. Work down the stub in the order below and you’ll be able to account for every dollar.

1. Check the dates, hours and rate

Start at the top, where the stub names the pay period and the pay date. The pay period is the stretch of days you worked, and the pay date, usually a few days later, is when the money moves.

Example: a biweekly stub for an hourly worker paid $25 an hour, for the period September 13 to September 26, 2026, paid on October 2, 2026.

Line on the stub	This period	What it tells you
Regular hours, 80 at $25.00	$2,000.00	Hours should match your timesheet
Gross pay	$2,000.00	Everything you earned before deductions
401(k), pre-tax	$100.00	Lowers wages for federal income tax only
Medical premium, pre-tax	$80.00	Lowers wages for income tax and FICA
Federal income tax	$135.00	Set by your Form W-4
Social Security	$119.04	6.2% of FICA wages
Medicare	$27.84	1.45% of FICA wages
State income tax	$60.00	Depends on where you live and work
Supplemental life insurance, after-tax	$12.00	No tax break
Net pay	$1,466.12	Should match your bank deposit

Multiply the hours by the rate. In the example, 80 hours at $25 comes to $2,000.00. If you worked overtime, the Department of Labor says covered workers must get at least time and a half for hours over 40 in a workweek. That rule counts each week on its own, so 50 hours one week and 30 the next still includes 10 overtime hours, even though the pair adds up to 80.

You’re finished with the top of the stub when the dates match the days you worked and hours times rate equals the earnings line.

2. Find your gross pay

Gross pay is the total you earned before anything comes out. It folds in regular pay, overtime, bonuses, commissions, shift premiums and paid time off. On a salary, it should equal your annual pay divided by your number of paychecks, so a $52,000 salary paid biweekly gives the same $2,000.00 as the hourly example.

Biweekly is the most common schedule. In February 2023, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 43.0 percent of private establishments paid every 2 weeks and 27.0 percent paid weekly. A biweekly job usually pays 26 times a year, so your gross can’t be your salary divided by 12.

If you don’t get a stub at all, federal law won’t fix that. The Labor Department’s FLSA Advisor says the Fair Labor Standards Act “does not require an employer to provide employees pay stubs,” though employers must keep records of hours and pay. Pay statement rules come from the states, and many of them do require one.

3. Read the federal income tax line

Federal income tax withholding is the line you have the most say over. Your employer sets it from your Form W-4 and the IRS withholding tables. In the example, it’s $135.00, a figure that stands in for whatever your own form and the tables produce.

The W-4 changed shape in 2020. The old form asked you to count “allowances,” a number few people could explain. The value of an allowance was tied to the personal exemption, which changes in tax law had taken away. The IRS FAQ on the redesign sums it up in one line, “Allowances are no longer used for the redesigned Form W-4.”

A white man in his early thirties with shaggy blond hair, light stubble and round wire glasses, in a deep teal short-sleeved shirt and olive trousers, sits on the stone front steps of a brick apartment building in late sun, holding a phone in one hand and a folded blank sheet of paper in the other, with a canvas tote and a peach water bottle beside him. — *The IRS doesn’t require a new W-4 just because the form changed. You need the 2020 version only when you want to adjust your withholding.*

The redesign is an improvement. The new form asks about real things, like a second job, dependents and other income, in dollars.

The IRS points people to its Tax Withholding Estimator, at IRS.gov/w4app, if they work part of the year, hold more than one job, or had a big refund or balance due. It suggests W-4 entries from your own numbers, which beats copying a coworker’s form.

You’re done here when your W-4 is current and you’ve run the estimator after any refund or tax bill that surprised you.

4. Find the 7.65% for FICA

Two lines on most stubs carry the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax, or FICA. Labels vary, so Social Security may appear as “OASDI” or “FICA-SS,” and Medicare as “Med” or “FICA-HI.”

The rates come from IRS Tax Topic 751. You pay 6.2% for Social Security on wages up to $184,500 in 2026 and 1.45% for Medicare with no cap. Once your employer has paid you more than $200,000 in a calendar year, it must also withhold an extra 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax, “without regard to filing status,” which brings Medicare to 2.35% on the wages above that line. Your employer pays its own 6.2% and 1.45% on top, and most stubs don’t show that half.

Employee share of FICA in 2026, from IRS Tax Topic 751. The IRS questions and answers on the Additional Medicare Tax say each employer counts only the wages it pays you, so two jobs can pass $200,000 together with no extra withholding.

Don’t multiply 7.65% by your gross pay and expect a match, though. FICA applies to FICA wages, and some pre-tax deductions shrink those. In the example, the $80.00 medical premium comes off first, leaving $1,920.00. At 6.2% that’s $119.04 for Social Security, and at 1.45% it’s $27.84 for Medicare, $146.88 in all.

Divide your Social Security line by 0.062. If the answer matches the FICA wages on your stub, the line is right.

5. Look for state and local lines

Below the federal lines sit whatever your state and city take, and this part of the stub looks different in every state. Pennsylvania’s Department of Revenue requires employers to withhold a flat 3.07 percent. California’s Employment Development Department sets its 2026 State Disability Insurance rate at 1.3 percent and, since January 1, 2024, applies it to all wages with no ceiling. Philadelphia adds a city Wage Tax, 3.735% for residents starting July 1, 2026.

The example shows $60.00 of state income tax. You might see a state tax, a disability or paid leave line, a city or school district tax, or nothing at all if your state doesn’t tax wages. Each line should name a place where you live or work. A city you left last year means your employer’s records need an update.

6. Spot the pre-tax deductions

Pre-tax deductions come out before income tax is figured, and they’re the reason your taxable wages sit below your gross. They don’t all work the same way, and the difference shows up on your stub.

A traditional 401(k) lowers only your income tax wages. The IRS 401(k) overview says elective deferrals avoid federal income tax withholding but “are included as wages subject to Social Security (FICA), Medicare, and federal unemployment taxes.” Health premiums taken through a cafeteria plan go further. The IRS cafeteria plan FAQ says those salary reductions “generally are not subject to FICA.”

Deduction	Wages for federal income tax	Wages for Social Security and Medicare
Traditional 401(k)	Lower	No change
Health premium through a cafeteria plan	Lower	Lower
HSA contribution through a cafeteria plan	Lower	Lower, up to the yearly limit
Roth 401(k), union dues, extra life insurance	No change	No change

That’s why the example has two taxable wage figures. Federal income tax wages are $2,000.00 minus $100.00 and $80.00, or $1,820.00, while FICA wages lose only the premium and stay at $1,920.00.

The pre-tax lines carry annual caps. For 2026, the IRS limit on employee 401(k) contributions is $24,500, and IRS Publication 969 caps HSA contributions at $4,400 for self-only coverage and $8,750 for family coverage.

Read each pre-tax line against your benefit elections, and confirm the amounts are the ones you chose at enrollment.

7. Read the after-tax deductions

After-tax deductions come out of pay that has already been taxed. Common ones are Roth 401(k) contributions, union dues, supplemental life or disability coverage you bought through work, charitable gifts, and wage garnishments ordered by a court or agency. The example’s only after-tax line is $12.00 for supplemental life insurance.

Each of these should be something you signed up for or a garnishment you were notified about. An after-tax line you can’t explain is worth a message to payroll the same week.

8. Use the year-to-date column

The year-to-date column adds up every check since January 1. In the example, the October 2 check is the 20th biweekly payday of 2026, so year-to-date gross pay reads $40,000.00 and year-to-date 401(k) contributions read $2,000.00.

That running total answers questions a single check can’t. You can see how close you are to the $24,500 401(k) limit before December.

If you earn more than $184,500, you’ll watch the Social Security line drop to zero once you pass the wage base, and your net pay jumps for the rest of the year.

Changing jobs mid-year resets the count, because each employer withholds Social Security from scratch. IRS Tax Topic 608 says that when more than one employer together withheld too much, you can claim the excess as a credit on your return. If a single employer over-withheld, you ask that employer to fix it.

9. Reconcile to your net pay

Now do the subtraction, starting from $2,000.00 of gross pay. Take away $180.00 of pre-tax deductions, $135.00 of federal income tax, $146.88 of FICA, $60.00 of state tax and $12.00 of after-tax deductions, and you’re left with $1,466.12. That’s about 73% of gross.

Example: the biweekly stub from step 1. The employer’s matching share of Social Security and Medicare, another $146.88 on the same wages, never appears on the stub.

Your bank deposit should match the net pay line to the cent. If your pay is split between checking and savings, add the deposits together first. When the numbers don’t match, look for a line that changed since the last stub, often a new benefit election or a W-4 update that took effect.

A two-minute payday check

Each time a stub arrives, run down this list before you file it:

The pay period covers the days you worked, and hours times rate equals your earnings.
Gross pay matches your rate or your salary divided by your number of paychecks.
Social Security divided by 0.062 equals your FICA wages, and Medicare divided by 0.0145 does too.
Every state, city and deduction line is one you recognize.
Net pay equals what reached your bank account.

If one line fails, write it down and send it to payroll with the stub’s pay date.