A raise can never leave you with less. Here is the ladder that shows why — every bracket, the income that actually landed in it, and the tax that slice produced.
What actually reaches your account after federal tax, FICA, and your state's own brackets — with local income tax disclosed rather than guessed at.
What a raise leaves you after tax, and what a bonus is withheld at versus what it actually costs.
One paycheck line by line, and the pay period in which Social Security stops and every remaining cheque gets bigger.
What actually comes out of an American paycheck in 2026 — federal brackets, FICA, and all fifty states' own rules — plus the take-home spread on one identical salary, computed rather than asserted.
A bonus arrives with a third missing and everyone concludes bonuses are taxed punitively. They are not. Withholding and tax are different things, and the difference comes back to you.
Convert every offer to take-home before you answer, match offers across state lines, and counter with scripts that work — with the arithmetic computed rather than asserted.
Self-employment tax is 14.13% of profit, not 15.3%. Price your rate, reserve on receipt, hit the safe harbour, and know when an S-corp is worth it — computed, not asserted.