How to read a pay stub
Published August 21, 2026 · updated August 25, 2026
Most people look at two numbers on a pay stub: gross and net. Everything between them is where the money actually went, and it is more legible than it looks once you know what each block is doing.
This walks down a typical stub in order.
The header
Employer legal name and address. The legal entity, not the trading name — they are often different, and the legal one is what matters if you ever file a wage claim.
Your name, and at most the last four digits of your Social Security number. If your full SSN is printed on the stub, that is worth raising. In California it is a violation on its own: Labor Code § 226(a)(7) permits only the last four digits or a non-SSN employee ID.
The pay period and the pay date — two different things. The pay period is the range you worked. The pay date is when the money moved. A stub dated August 21 for the period August 1–15 is normal; several states require both to be shown precisely because confusing them causes disputes.
Earnings
This block should never be a single number. Expect at least:
| Line | What it is |
|---|---|
| Regular | Hours × your regular rate |
| Overtime | Hours over 40 in a workweek × 1.5 × your regular rate |
| Other | Bonus, commission, PTO payout, shift differential |
Two things to check.
Overtime is per workweek, not per pay period. A workweek is a fixed, recurring 168-hour period your employer adopted in advance. If you work 30 hours one week and 52 the next, that is 12 hours of overtime — even though the two-week total of 82 is only 2 hours over a "biweekly 80." Averaging across the pay period is not allowed.
Your regular rate may not be your hourly rate. Non-discretionary bonuses and shift premiums get folded into the regular rate for overtime purposes. If you earned a production bonus in a week you worked overtime, the overtime rate should reflect it.
Deductions: taxes
Federal income tax
This is the line people most often expect to be a fixed percentage, and it never is.
The employer annualizes your pay period, subtracts a fixed amount based on your filing status — in 2026, $8,600 for single and head of household, $12,900 for married filing jointly — runs the result through a bracket table, then divides back down to the pay period. The dollar boxes on your Form W-4 feed in at specific points: dependents reduce the annual tax, other income raises the annualized wage, deductions lower it, and any extra withholding you asked for is added flat at the end.
Two consequences worth internalizing:
- A bonus paycheck will show a startling federal tax line. Annualizing a period that included a bonus makes it look like you earn that much every period. It corrects itself at year end.
- Withholding is an estimate, not the tax. It is your employer's best guess at what you will owe. Your return settles the difference.
Social Security (often labelled OASDI or FICA-SS)
6.2% of wages, up to a wage base of $184,500 in 2026. Once your year-to-date Social Security wages cross that, this line stops for the rest of the year and your take-home rises. If you see it disappear in November, nothing is broken.
Medicare
1.45% of all wages, no cap. Above $200,000 in a calendar year, an extra 0.9% is withheld. That $200,000 threshold applies regardless of filing status — the $250,000 figure you may have read is the threshold for what you owe on your return, not for what your employer withholds. Married couples who each earn under $200,000 but over $250,000 combined routinely owe additional Medicare at filing that nobody withheld.
State income tax
Nine states withhold nothing on wages — Florida and Texas among them. A zero on that line for a Florida employee is correct and expected.
Where there is a state tax, the shape is usually: annualize, subtract a state standard deduction, subtract exemptions, apply the state schedule, subtract credits. Pennsylvania is the outlier that really is flat — 3.07% of compensation with no deduction or exemption to reduce it. Most "flat rate" states are not: they apply one rate after a deduction, so the effective percentage of gross is always lower than the headline rate.
Some states also changed rates mid-year. Georgia's rate dropped on May 11, 2026, Utah's on June 1, Ohio's tables changed on August 1. Two stubs from the same employer in the same year can legitimately use different rates.
Local tax
City or school district tax, where it exists — Ohio and Pennsylvania municipalities are the common cases. This is separate from the state rate and is not part of it.
Deductions: everything else
Pre-tax deductions come out before certain taxes are calculated, and which taxes depends on the deduction:
| Deduction | Reduces federal income tax base | Reduces Social Security and Medicare base |
|---|---|---|
| 401(k) / 403(b) traditional deferral | Yes | No |
| Section 125 health, dental, vision premiums | Yes | Yes |
| HSA through a cafeteria plan | Yes | Yes |
| Roth 401(k) | No | No |
The 401(k) row surprises people every year. Your retirement deferral lowers the wages your income tax is figured on, but Social Security and Medicare are still computed on the full amount — which is why your Medicare wages on a W-2 are usually higher than your federal taxable wages.
Post-tax deductions come out of what is left: garnishments, union dues, Roth contributions, some insurance.
Whatever the deduction, it should say what it is for. Ohio's statute requires the amount and purpose of every addition and deduction; "Misc" with a number beside it is not an itemization, and it is the usual starting point of a wage complaint.
Most stubs abbreviate these lines rather than spell them out, and the codes are not standardized between employers. Pay stub abbreviations is a lookup for the common ones, including the imputed-income codes that appear as both an earning and a deduction of the same amount.
Net pay
Gross, minus everything above. This should equal the amount that hit your account. If it does not, the difference is usually a garnishment or an advance repayment that appears on the stub but was netted differently, or a second payment method — check whether part went to a payroll card.
Year-to-date columns
These are why a pay stub works as proof of income. Each column accumulates from January 1: gross, each tax, each deduction, net. Illinois writes year-to-date totals for wages and deductions into its statutory definition of a pay stub.
Use them as your check. Your last stub of the year should reconcile against your W-2 — year-to-date gross against Box 1 after adding back pre-tax deductions, year-to-date Social Security wages against Box 3, Medicare against Box 5.
Checking the stub yourself
Three arithmetic checks catch most errors in under a minute:
- Gross. Regular hours × rate, plus overtime hours × rate × 1.5, plus other earnings. Does it match?
- Social Security. Gross for the period, minus Section 125 deductions, × 6.2%. Does it match — unless you are past $184,500 year to date?
- Net. Gross minus the sum of every deduction line. Does it match?
If check 2 fails and you have a 401(k) deferral, look at whether the deferral was subtracted before the 6.2% was applied. It should not have been.
When something is wrong
Ask your employer first — most stub problems are payroll configuration, not intent. If that does not resolve it, what happens next depends on where you work:
- New York lets you require a written explanation of how your wages were computed, and its Department of Labor can assess $250 per day per worker for improper statements.
- California gives you the right to inspect or copy your payroll records within 21 days of asking, with a $750 penalty if the employer refuses.
- Illinois lets you demand copies of past stubs — including up to a year after you leave — with 21 days to produce them.
- Ohio requires a written request first; the employer then has ten days before the Department of Commerce gets involved.
- Georgia does not run a wage claim process at all — its labor department points people to small claims court.
Which of those routes applies depends first on whether the pay was wrong or only the statement was, because the two carry different remedies and different deadlines. Correcting a pay stub error takes it from here, on both sides of the payroll desk.
Building one to compare against
If you want to see what your stub should look like for a given salary, state and filing status, the generator applies the 2026 federal, FICA and state withholding tables and shows every line. It is a useful way to sanity-check a number you are unsure about before you raise it with payroll.