To calculate a pay raise, multiply your current pay by 1 plus the raise percentage. A 3% raise on $60,000 is $60,000 × 1.03 = $61,800, an extra $1,800 a year. To find the raise percentage between two salaries, divide the difference by the old salary: $52,000 to $55,000 is a 5.77% raise.
Pay increase calculator: compare old and new pay
Select Compare old and new pay when you know the two amounts. Enter both for the same period, such as hourly or annual pay. The increase is new − old and the percentage is (new − old) ÷ old × 100. A change from 60,000 to 63,000 is 3,000 a year and a 5% raise.
The prominent per-period difference follows your input period; the table shows the same annualized increase as hourly, weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, monthly and yearly amounts. In this example it averages 250 monthly or 115.38 across 26 biweekly checks before deductions. These averages are separate from the optional U.S. take-home estimate.
Use the salary to hourly calculator when your scheduled hours also change, and the overtime calculator when extra hours change the gross pay in individual weeks.
How to use this pay raise calculator
- Pick what you know: the raise percentage, the raise amount in dollars, or your old and new pay.
- Choose how you are paid (hourly, weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, monthly or annual) and your hours per week, then enter your current pay.
- Enter the raise percentage, the raise amount, or the new pay.
- Read your new pay and raise percentage, then check the table for your pay before and after the raise in every pay period.
- Open “Take-home estimate” and pick a filing status to see how much of the raise reaches your bank account after 2026 federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and an optional state rate.
- Open “Future salary & inflation” to see what the same raise every year adds up to, and whether it beats inflation. The chart plots your pay against the pay you would need just to keep up with prices.
How to calculate a salary increase
New pay = current pay × (1 + r ÷ 100)
Raise percentage = (new pay − old pay) ÷ old pay × 100
Pay after n years = current pay × (1 + r ÷ 100)n
- r is the raise in percent. A 4% raise means r = 4.
- Old pay is always the base you divide by. The percentage is measured against where you started, not where you ended up.
- n is the number of yearly raises. Raises compound because each one is a percentage of an already-raised salary.
- Hourly to annual uses 2,080 hours (40 hours × 52 weeks), the same full-time year as our hourly to salary calculator. OPM uses a 2,087-hour divisor for federal hourly rates.
The real (inflation-adjusted) raise is (1 + raise) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1. It tells you how much more your pay actually buys. The inflation field defaults to 3.4%, the CPI-U change for the 12 months ending August 2026 reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Worked examples
How much is a 3 percent raise on $60,000?
$60,000 × 0.03 = $1,800. New salary: $61,800. That is $150.00 more a month and $69.23 more per biweekly paycheck, before tax.
Raise percentage from $52,000 to $55,000
($55,000 − $52,000) ÷ $52,000 × 100 = 5.77%. Against 3.4% inflation that is a real raise of 2.29%.
A 4% raise on $22 an hour
$22 × 1.04 = $22.88 an hour, a raise of $0.88 per hour, or $1,830 a year at full time.
Salary increase over 10 years at 3%
$60,000 × 1.0310 = $80,635. Ten raises of 3% add 34.4% in total, more than the 30% you would get by adding them up, because of compounding.
How much of a raise you take home after taxes
A raise is quoted in gross pay, but the extra dollars are taxed at your marginal rate: the rate on your top slice of income. Three layers apply to wages. Federal income tax uses the 2026 brackets the IRS published in its tax year 2026 inflation adjustments, applied to wages minus the standard deduction ($16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly). Social Security takes 6.2% of wages up to the $184,500 wage base for 2026, and Medicare takes 1.45% of all wages, plus 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax that employers withhold on wages over $200,000 (IRS Topic 751). State and local income tax, if you have one, comes on top.
Example. A single filer earning $60,000 gets a 5% raise to $63,000. Taxable income moves from $43,900 to $46,900, all inside the 12% bracket, so federal income tax rises $360. Social Security and Medicare add $229.50. The take-home gain is about $2,410.50 a year, or $92.71 per biweekly check. The same $3,000 raise from $80,000 lands in the 22% bracket and keeps $2,110.50.
| Federal bracket | + Social Security & Medicare | You keep |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | 7.65% | 82.35% |
| 12% | 7.65% | 80.35% |
| 22% | 7.65% | 70.35% |
| 24% | 7.65% | 68.35% |
| 24%, wages $184,500–$200,000 | 1.45% | 74.55% |
| 32%, wages over $200,000 | 2.35% | 65.65% |
| 35%, wages over $200,000 | 2.35% | 62.65% |
2026 federal income tax brackets
| Rate | Single | Married filing jointly |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | $0–$12,400 | $0–$24,800 |
| 12% | $12,400–$50,400 | $24,800–$100,800 |
| 22% | $50,400–$105,700 | $100,800–$211,400 |
| 24% | $105,700–$201,775 | $211,400–$403,550 |
| 32% | $201,775–$256,225 | $403,550–$512,450 |
| 35% | $256,225–$640,600 | $512,450–$768,700 |
| 37% | over $640,600 | over $768,700 |
Social Security stops at the $184,500 wage base and the extra 0.9% Medicare starts above $200,000 of wages, which is why the payroll-tax column changes for high earners. The estimate assumes wages are your only income and ignores 401(k) contributions, health premiums and credits. Pre-tax deductions lower the tax on a raise; a percentage-based 401(k) contribution also grows with it, so your paycheck rises by less while your savings rise by more.
Will a raise push you into a higher tax bracket?
It might move your top dollars into the next bracket, but it cannot cost you money through federal income tax. Brackets apply in slices: in the IRS 2026 schedule, a single filer pays 22% only on taxable income over $50,400, while the income below that is still taxed at 10% and 12%. If a raise lifts taxable income from $49,000 to $52,000, only the last $1,600 is taxed at 22%. The real traps are elsewhere: income-tested benefits, subsidies or credits that phase out as income rises. If you are near such a limit, check it before and after the raise.
Raise vs one-time bonus
A raise and a bonus of the same size are not equal. A bonus is paid once. A raise is paid in every paycheck for as long as you stay, and each later percentage raise is calculated on the higher base. A $3,000 raise on $60,000 is worth $15,000 over five years before any further raises; if you then get 3% a year, the extra base alone adds $478 more by year five. Bonuses also look smaller on the paycheck: IRS Publication 15 lets employers withhold federal income tax on supplemental wages at a flat 22% (37% on supplemental wages over $1 million in a year). That is withholding, not your final tax, so you settle the difference on your return.
Mid-year raises and retroactive pay
A raise that starts partway through the year only adds the months that remain. An $1,800 annual raise effective July 1 adds $900 to this calendar year and the full $1,800 from next year on: raise × months remaining ÷ 12. If the raise is backdated, you receive retroactive pay for the periods already worked at the old rate. For a biweekly worker whose raise was approved six pay periods late, the lump sum is six times the per-check raise: with $1,800 a year that is 6 × $69.23 = $415.38. The calculator's pay-period table gives you the per-check figure to multiply.
Weekly, biweekly and semi-monthly pay after a raise
Choose how you are paid and the calculator converts the raise into every other period. The two most confused schedules are biweekly (every two weeks, 26 checks a year) and semi-monthly (twice a month, 24 checks). The same $63,000 salary is $2,423.08 per biweekly check but $2,625.00 per semi-monthly check, so compare raises on the annual figure, not the check. For hourly pay, set your real hours per week: a 30-hour-a-week job at $20 an hour earns $31,200 a year, and a $1 raise is worth $1,560 a year, not the $2,080 a full-time schedule would give.
Pay cuts and negative raises
Enter a new salary lower than the old one and the calculator shows a negative percentage. Cuts and raises are not symmetric, because the raise that restores your pay is measured from the smaller base. After a 10% cut you need an 11.11% raise to get back to where you started; after a 20% cut, a 25% raise. The formula is 1 ÷ (1 − cut) − 1. The same logic explains why a raise that lags inflation for several years takes more than one good year to make up.
Salary after common raises
New gross annual salary after each raise percentage, before tax. For a salary between rows, use the calculator.
| Current | +2% | +3% | +4% | +5% | +10% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $30,000 | $30,600 | $30,900 | $31,200 | $31,500 | $33,000 |
| $35,000 | $35,700 | $36,050 | $36,400 | $36,750 | $38,500 |
| $40,000 | $40,800 | $41,200 | $41,600 | $42,000 | $44,000 |
| $45,000 | $45,900 | $46,350 | $46,800 | $47,250 | $49,500 |
| $50,000 | $51,000 | $51,500 | $52,000 | $52,500 | $55,000 |
| $55,000 | $56,100 | $56,650 | $57,200 | $57,750 | $60,500 |
| $60,000 | $61,200 | $61,800 | $62,400 | $63,000 | $66,000 |
| $65,000 | $66,300 | $66,950 | $67,600 | $68,250 | $71,500 |
| $70,000 | $71,400 | $72,100 | $72,800 | $73,500 | $77,000 |
| $75,000 | $76,500 | $77,250 | $78,000 | $78,750 | $82,500 |
| $80,000 | $81,600 | $82,400 | $83,200 | $84,000 | $88,000 |
| $90,000 | $91,800 | $92,700 | $93,600 | $94,500 | $99,000 |
| $100,000 | $102,000 | $103,000 | $104,000 | $105,000 | $110,000 |
| $110,000 | $112,200 | $113,300 | $114,400 | $115,500 | $121,000 |
| $120,000 | $122,400 | $123,600 | $124,800 | $126,000 | $132,000 |
| $150,000 | $153,000 | $154,500 | $156,000 | $157,500 | $165,000 |
Hourly wage after a raise
New hourly rates after a 3% or 5% raise, and what a flat $1-an-hour raise is worth as a percentage — it is a bigger raise, in percentage terms, the lower the starting wage.
| Current | +3% | +5% | +$1/hr | $1/hr as % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $15.00/hr | $15.45 | $15.75 | $16.00 | 6.7% |
| $16.00/hr | $16.48 | $16.80 | $17.00 | 6.3% |
| $17.00/hr | $17.51 | $17.85 | $18.00 | 5.9% |
| $18.00/hr | $18.54 | $18.90 | $19.00 | 5.6% |
| $19.00/hr | $19.57 | $19.95 | $20.00 | 5.3% |
| $20.00/hr | $20.60 | $21.00 | $21.00 | 5% |
| $22.00/hr | $22.66 | $23.10 | $23.00 | 4.5% |
| $25.00/hr | $25.75 | $26.25 | $26.00 | 4% |
| $28.00/hr | $28.84 | $29.40 | $29.00 | 3.6% |
| $30.00/hr | $30.90 | $31.50 | $31.00 | 3.3% |
| $35.00/hr | $36.05 | $36.75 | $36.00 | 2.9% |
| $40.00/hr | $41.20 | $42.00 | $41.00 | 2.5% |
Raise percentage between two salaries
Common old-to-new salary pairs, with the dollar raise and the percentage measured against the old salary.
| Old salary | New salary | Raise | Raise % |
|---|---|---|---|
| $40,000 | $42,000 | $2,000 | 5% |
| $50,000 | $52,500 | $2,500 | 5% |
| $50,000 | $55,000 | $5,000 | 10% |
| $60,000 | $65,000 | $5,000 | 8.33% |
| $65,000 | $70,000 | $5,000 | 7.69% |
| $70,000 | $80,000 | $10,000 | 14.29% |
| $80,000 | $90,000 | $10,000 | 12.5% |
| $100,000 | $110,000 | $10,000 | 10% |
How a $60,000 salary grows over 10 years
Salary after 5 and 10 years of the same yearly raise, compounding, with no promotions or job changes. Total growth is more than raise × years because each raise builds on the last.
| Yearly raise | After 5 years | After 10 years | Total growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2% | $66,245 | $73,140 | 21.9% |
| 3% | $69,556 | $80,635 | 34.4% |
| 4% | $72,999 | $88,815 | 48% |
| 5% | $76,577 | $97,734 | 62.9% |
What counts as a normal raise
No law sets a standard raise for private-sector workers; it depends on your employer, industry and performance. Two government figures make useful benchmarks. The BLS Employment Cost Index shows civilian wages and salaries rose 3.2% in the 12 months ending June 2026 (3.1% in private industry and 3.4% in state and local government). The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers rose 3.4% in the 12 months ending August 2026. For federal workers, OPM applied a 1% across-the-board increase to 2026 General Schedule base pay.
The Employment Cost Index measures what employers pay across all jobs, not what any one person gets. Promotions, job changes and merit raises can put you well above or below it.
Common mistakes
- Dividing by the new salary. $50,000 to $55,000 is a 10% raise. Dividing $5,000 by $55,000 gives 9.09%, which is wrong.
- Adding raises instead of compounding them. Five 4% raises are 21.7%, not 20%.
- Ignoring inflation. A raise smaller than inflation is a pay cut in what your money buys.
- Averaging percentages for YoY growth. Use the compound annual growth rate (see FAQ) when comparing pay across several years.
- Expecting the whole raise in take-home pay. Taxes and percentage-based deductions rise too.
Merit increase vs cost-of-living raise vs promotion
A merit increase rewards performance and is usually decided at an annual review. A cost-of-living adjustment moves everyone's pay by the same percentage, often with inflation in mind. A promotion raise comes with a new role and is often larger. The math is the same for all three, so use this calculator for any of them. To see how the extra hours of a new schedule change your pay, try the work hours calculator; to see how much paid leave your new job earns, use the PTO accrual calculator.
This calculator gives estimates for general information and isn't financial, tax or employment advice. Your offer letter or pay stub shows your actual pay.
Frequently asked questions
How much is a 3 percent raise?
A 3% raise adds 3 cents per dollar. On $50,000 it is $1,500 a year, taking you to $51,500; on $60,000 it is $1,800, for $61,800. On $20 an hour, 3% is 60 cents, so the new rate is $20.60.
How do I calculate the raise percentage between two salaries?
Subtract the old pay from the new pay, divide by the old pay, and multiply by 100. Going from $52,000 to $55,000 is $3,000 ÷ $52,000 × 100 = 5.77%.
What is a good raise percentage in 2026?
There is no official standard, but a useful yardstick is the Employment Cost Index: BLS reported wages and salaries for civilian workers rose 3.2% in the 12 months ending June 2026. Consumer prices (CPI-U) rose 3.4% in the 12 months ending August 2026, so a raise below about 3.4% did not keep up with prices over that period.
Does a raise keep up with inflation?
Only if it is at least as large as inflation. The real raise is (1 + raise) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1. A 3% raise with 3.4% inflation is a real change of -0.39%; a 5% raise is 1.55%.
What will my salary be in 10 years?
At a steady 3% a year, $60,000 grows to $80,635 after 10 years because each raise builds on the last. At 2% it would be $73,140, and at 5% it would be $97,734.
What is YoY salary growth and how is it calculated?
Year-over-year (YoY) growth is this year's pay minus last year's, divided by last year's, times 100. Over several years use the compound annual growth rate: (end ÷ start)^(1 ÷ years) − 1. Going from $50,000 to $65,000 in 5 years is 5.39% a year, not 6%.
How much did federal GS pay go up in 2026?
OPM's January 2026 pay examples apply a 1% across-the-board increase to General Schedule base rates, with each locality pay percentage then applied on top of the new base.
Is a raise calculated on gross or take-home pay?
On gross pay. Your take-home pay rises by less than the raise because income tax, Social Security, Medicare and any percentage-based deductions such as 401(k) contributions also go up.
How much of my raise will I take home after taxes?
Less than the gross amount, because the extra pay is taxed at your top (marginal) federal rate plus 7.65% Social Security and Medicare, and any state tax. A single filer going from $60,000 to $63,000 in 2026 keeps about $2,411 of the $3,000 before state tax; at $80,000 to $83,000, in the 22% bracket, about $2,111. Turn on the take-home estimate in the calculator for your numbers.
Will a raise put me in a higher tax bracket and lower my take-home pay?
It can move your top dollars into a higher bracket, but only the income above the bracket threshold is taxed at the higher rate, so federal income tax alone can never make a raise shrink your take-home pay. What can bite is losing an income-tested benefit or credit that phases out.
Is a raise better than a bonus of the same amount?
Usually, yes. A $3,000 bonus is paid once; a $3,000 raise is paid every year you stay, is $15,000 over five years, and future percentage raises are calculated on top of it. Bonuses are also often withheld at the IRS flat 22% supplemental rate, though your actual tax is settled on your return.
How do I convert an hourly raise to a yearly amount?
Multiply the raise per hour by 2,080, the hours in a 40-hour, 52-week year. A $1-an-hour raise is $2,080 a year; a $2.50 raise is $5,200.
Sources & method
- BLS — Employment Cost Index, June 2026 (wages and salaries +3.2% over 12 months)
- BLS — Consumer Price Index, August 2026 (CPI-U +3.4% over 12 months)
- OPM — January 2026 pay examples (1% General Schedule increase)
- IRS — Tax year 2026 inflation adjustments (income tax brackets and standard deduction)
- IRS — Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates (2026 wage base $184,500)
- IRS — Publication 15 (2026), Circular E, section 7: supplemental wages
- OPM — computing hourly rates of pay using the 2,087-hour divisor
Results are estimates for general information. Found an error? It helps everyone — see our methodology.