Why We Built This Site
Most minimum wage calculators show you the gross hourly rate and stop there. But a worker asking "how much do I actually take home?" needs a completely different answer - one that accounts for federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, filing status, and the hours they actually work.
We built MinimumWageAfterTax.com in 2026 to be the most accurate, state-specific take-home pay resource for minimum wage workers in the United States. Every page shows the real after-tax number, not the headline wage.
Our Research Team
Labor Law Analysts
Our labor law analysts monitor the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, individual state labor department websites, and state legislative session calendars every week. When a state legislature passes a minimum wage bill, or when a city ordinance takes effect, we update our data within 72 hours. We track all 50 states plus DC plus DC, including city-level overrides in states like California, Washington, New York, Colorado, and Illinois.
Payroll Tax Researchers
Our tax research team monitors IRS publications, Revenue Procedures, and the annual inflation-adjustment announcements released each fall. For 2026, we verified all calculations against IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) changes to standard deductions, tax brackets, overtime deductions, and tip exemptions. Our calculator uses the actual 2026 IRS tax bracket thresholds - not estimated figures.
🔒 Data Integrity Pledge
We do not estimate or extrapolate minimum wage rates. Every rate published on this site comes from a primary source: the U.S. Department of Labor, individual state labor department websites, or official state legislative text.
We do not publish wage rates without a corresponding DOL or state source link on each state page.
If our data is wrong, we want to know. Email us at contact@minimumwageaftertax.com and we will investigate and correct within 48 hours.
What We Track
- All 50 state minimum wage rates (updated for 2026 legislated and CPI-indexed changes)
- City and county-level wage overrides for CA, WA, NY, CO, IL, OR, MN, and others
- Tipped employee minimum wages by state
- Youth and training wage rates where applicable
- Scheduled future increases through 2027–2028
- Federal tax brackets, standard deductions, and FICA rates for 2026
- OBBBA overtime and tip deduction rules effective 2026
Data Sources
- U.S. Department of Labor - State Minimum Wage Laws
- IRS 2026 Tax Inflation Adjustments (OBBBA)
- Individual state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations websites
- State legislative session records for 2025–2026 wage bill text
Our Methodology
Every figure on this site follows the same verification chain. Minimum wage rates are checked against the U.S. Department of Labor's state minimum wage table and the individual state labor department that publishes the official rate. Tax constants - the $16,100 standard deduction for 2026, federal bracket thresholds, the 6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare rates, and the $184,500 Social Security wage base - are taken directly from IRS revenue procedures and Social Security Administration announcements, never from secondary summaries.
All 50 state take-home tables are regenerated from a single script using those verified constants, so every Annual row balances arithmetically against its own Weekly and Monthly rows, and every worked example on a state page is recomputed independently and cross-checked against its table before publication. When a state announces a rate change, the affected page, the comparison table, and the sitemap date are updated together. Found a number that doesn't match the official source? Email contact@minimumwageaftertax.com and we will re-verify it against the primary source and correct it.
Contact & Corrections
Found a data error? Wage rates change frequently and we may not catch every update the moment it happens. Email us at contact@minimumwageaftertax.com with the state, the incorrect rate, and your source, and we'll verify and fix it within 48 hours.
For general questions about how the calculator works, visit our homepage or the All States comparison page.