Work out exactly how much a raise is worth: the new salary, the dollar increase, what it adds to each paycheck after 2026 taxes, and whether it actually beats inflation. Enter a percentage, a dollar amount or your new salary.
raise: $60,000 → $62,400 (+$2,400 a year)
After 3.7% inflation (CPI-U, 12 months to September 2026) the real raise is 0.29%.
After estimated 2026 taxes that's about $74.17 more per paycheck ($1,928 a year), because 20% of the raise goes to taxes at your income.
| Year | Pay | In today's dollars |
|---|---|---|
| Year 0 | $60,000 | $60,000 |
| Year 1 | $62,400 | $60,174 |
| Year 2 | $64,896 | $60,348 |
| Year 3 | $67,492 | $60,522 |
| Year 4 | $70,192 | $60,697 |
| Year 5 | $72,999 | $60,873 |
Estimates for planning only. Not tax, legal or financial advice. Results use 2026 federal rates (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32) and the state tables listed below, and may differ from your actual withholding. Consult a qualified tax professional. See our disclaimer.
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The default result is a 4% raise on $60,000 in Texas. Your new salary is $62,400, a $2,400 increase. After federal tax and FICA, about $1,928 of that reaches you, or $74.17 per biweekly check. With inflation at 3.7%, that's a real raise of about 0.29%.
| Raise | Increase per year | Real raise | Pay after 5 years of the same raise |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2% | $1,200 | -1.64% | $66,245 |
| 3% | $1,800 | -0.68% | $69,556 |
| 4% | $2,400 | 0.29% | $72,999 |
| 5% | $3,000 | 1.25% | $76,577 |
| 10% | $6,000 | 6.08% | $96,631 |
Bring numbers, not feelings. If your raise is below inflation, your pay is falling in real terms, and that's a fair, neutral point to raise with a manager. Pair it with market data for your role. Our salary negotiation guide and salary expectations guide walk through how. If you're comparing a raise with an outside offer, run both through the take-home calculator, since a move to another state can change your net pay more than the raise does.
Last updated . Data vintage: CPI-U September 2026 (released 2026-10-14); 2026 tax tables.
Subtract your old pay from your new pay, divide by your old pay and multiply by 100. Going from $60,000 to $63,000 is a ($3,000 ÷ $60,000) = 5% raise.
No. Only the income above a bracket threshold is taxed at the higher rate, so a raise always increases your take-home pay, just by a bit less than the gross amount.
Your raise after inflation: (1 + raise) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1. If prices rose 3.7% and you got 3%, your real pay fell by about 0.7%.
The latest 12-month change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
$1,500 a year, so a $51,500 salary. That's about $57.69 more per biweekly paycheck before taxes.