Pay Raise Calculator
A raise sounds simple — a percentage on top of your pay — but what matters is what it adds per paycheck, and whether it actually beats inflation. Enter your current salary and the raise percentage to see both.
Worked example
At a $60,000 salary with a 5% raise: your new salary is $60,000 × 1.05 = $63,000 — an extra $3,000 a year, or $250 a month. Against 3% inflation, the real raise is (1.05 ÷ 1.03) − 1 ≈ 1.94%, so in today's dollars the new salary buys what $61,165.05 buys now.
Formula
New salary = current salary × (1 + raise %). Real raise ≈ (1 + raise %) ÷ (1 + inflation %) − 1.
FAQ
What is a typical annual raise? US employers commonly budget around 3–4% a year for merit raises in recent years; a raise at or below inflation is a pay cut in buying power even though the number goes up.
Is a raise taxed at a higher rate? Only the dollars inside each higher bracket are taxed at that bracket's rate — a raise never lowers your take-home pay by pushing your whole salary into a higher bracket.