Last checked 2026-11-07. Payroll tax rates and wage bases are set annually — confirm the figures for your tax year on the IRS pages linked below before you rely on them.
The calculator on this page shows the Social Security and Medicare lines separately so you can see the two rates working on your own salary.
Every paycheck with FICA withholding on it is carrying two separate taxes that happen to travel together.
Social Security, referred to in the statute and on pay stubs as OASDI, is charged at 6.2% on the employee and 6.2% on the employer. The IRS states it as "6.2% for the employer and 6.2% for the employee, or 12.4% total" (IRS).
Medicare, referred to as HI, is charged at 1.45% on the employee and 1.45% on the employer, or 2.9% in total, and the IRS notes the rate is unchanged from 2025 (IRS).
Add the employee's two rates and you get 7.65%. That is the whole of the number. It is not a blended rate that the government chose; it is the sum of two rates that were set for two different programs.
The employer's half does not appear on your pay stub, which is why the total cost of employing someone is higher than the salary plus your own deductions. For a $60,000 salary, the employer also pays 7.65%, or $4,590, in payroll tax. Whether that comes out of what would otherwise have been your pay is a question about wages in general, not about the tax rules, and this page does not answer it.
Income tax and payroll tax use different starting points, and this is the single most common source of confusion about take-home pay.
Federal income tax is calculated on taxable income: gross wages minus the standard deduction or itemized deductions, minus other adjustments. For 2026 the standard deduction is $16,100 for a single filer. That deduction removes income from income tax.
FICA is calculated on wages. There is no standard deduction, no personal exemption and no credit in the FICA calculation. A $60,000 salary is FICA-taxed on $60,000, and income-taxed on $43,900.
This is why a worker with a low enough income to owe no federal income tax can still see a large deduction on their paycheck. The 7.65% is still owed. It is also why a raise can be described as costing 7.65% before income tax even begins to apply to the extra dollars.
The Social Security half stops at the wage base. For 2026 that base is $184,500 (IRS).
Above that level, Social Security withholding stops for the year and only Medicare continues. For a salaried employee paid evenly, the 6.2% line disappears from paychecks late in the year if the salary is high enough. That is the rule working, not a payroll mistake.
The Medicare half never stops. The IRS is explicit that "there's no wage base limit for Medicare tax" and that "all covered wages are subject to Medicare tax" (IRS).
The practical consequence: the effective payroll tax rate on your marginal dollar falls from 7.65% to 1.45% once you cross the base. Two people on the same salary can therefore have different effective payroll tax rates if one of them reached the base earlier — for example because of a second job or a mid-year raise.
Take a single filer with $60,000 of wages in the 2026 tax year, no other income.
The $60,000 is below the 2026 wage base of $184,500, so the ceiling does not come into play at this salary. For a salary above the base, the Social Security line would be capped at 6.2% × $184,500 = $11,439 and the Medicare line would keep rising with every dollar.
That $11,439 is the figure the Social Security Administration publishes as the maximum employee contribution for the year, and it is also exactly 6.2% of the $184,500 base.
Three things FICA is routinely confused with:
It is not a savings account in your name. The money goes into the Social Security trust fund and is used to pay current benefits. What you eventually receive is set by the benefit formula, not by what was withheld under your name.
It is not optional. There is no election to opt out for a normal employee. Some narrow categories defined in law have their own rules, but they are not choices a typical employee can make.
It is not the same as the additional Medicare tax. Above certain thresholds an extra 0.9% Medicare surtax applies. It is a separate provision with its own threshold and its own reporting, and it does not change the 7.65% base rate.
The comparison worth doing is between the two denominators. FICA is a percentage of wages. Federal income tax is a percentage of taxable income. They are different numbers describing different things, and both come off the same paycheck.
Enter your salary in the calculator on this page and check the two payroll lines against the arithmetic above.
Updated 2026-11-08 · Sources retrieved 2026-11-07
This is a general explanation of how FICA withholding works, not tax advice. The examples use a single filer with wages only and no additional Medicare tax. Your own result depends on your full situation. For anything you will act on, check the IRS pages linked above or ask a tax professional.
We check every report against the official source and update the page. See how on our Corrections.