Teacher Take-Home Pay Calculator
Estimate teacher take-home pay after TRS pension contributions, union dues, and 2026 federal, state, and FICA tax, with a no-Social-Security toggle.
Teacher Take-Home Pay Calculator
Your teaching contract
Pick your state and the tool fills in a starting pension rate and the Social Security coverage that most districts there use. Both are editable.
Base salary from your district salary schedule. Stipends for coaching or extra duty are usually paid separately.
Approximate rate for your state plan. Check your pay stub or your retirement system and edit the field.
Most Texas teachers are in non-covered employment, so no Social Security tax is withheld. Flip this on if your district does withhold it.
National, state and local dues combined usually land between $500 and $1,200 a year. Enter 0 if you are not a member.
Advanced: 403(b) and state effective-rate override
Your own supplemental savings on top of the mandatory pension. Pre-tax for income tax, never for FICA.
Leave blank to use the built-in flat estimate for your state.
Enter your annual contract salary.
| Line | Per paycheck | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Gross salary | $0.00 | $0 |
| TRS / pension contribution (pre-tax) | $0.00 | $0 |
| 403(b) / 457(b) contribution | $0.00 | $0 |
| Federal income tax | $0.00 | $0 |
| State income tax (est.) | $0.00 | $0 |
| Social Security (OASDI) | $0.00 | $0 |
| Medicare | $0.00 | $0 |
| Union dues (post-tax) | $0.00 | $0 |
| Total off the top | $0.00 | $0 |
Your pension contribution comes out before federal income tax under the section 414(h)(2) pick-up, so it costs less take-home than its face value. It does not reduce your Social Security or Medicare wages.
These two differ by exactly your pension contribution plus any 403(b) money. That gap is the line a general-purpose paycheck calculator has no field for.
2026 estimate. Federal tax is annual liability from the 2026 brackets and standard deduction spread evenly over your paycheck count, not Publication 15-T withholding. State tax is a single simplified effective rate you can override. Health premiums, local and city income tax, and credits are not modeled.
Stub44
Salary Calculator
Keep your paycheck numbers on your phone
Enter your salary, state and W-4 once in Stub44. Change a number later and see the new net pay for every pay period.
Free · No sign-up needed
Why a teacher paycheck doesn't look like anyone else's
Three payroll lines break the usual gross-to-net math, and a generic paycheck calculator misses all of them. First, a mandatory pension contribution of 5 to 12 percent, not a voluntary 401(k) you can dial down in a tight month. Second, Social Security that may not be withheld at all: roughly 40 percent of US public school teachers work in non-covered employment. Third, union dues, which come out after every tax has already been taken.
Put numbers on it. A single Texas teacher earning $62,000 contributes 8.25 percent to TRS (about $5,115 a year), pays no Social Security, still pays 1.45 percent Medicare on the full $62,000, and has no state income tax. A private-sector worker on the same $62,000 in the same state contributes nothing mandatory, but hands over 6.2 percent to Social Security on every dollar. The two paychecks land in a similar place by very different routes, and only one of them is building a pension.
How the pension deduction changes your taxes, and how it doesn't
Mandatory member contributions are picked up by the employer under IRC section 414(h)(2). In plain language: the money is taken out of your pay before federal income tax is figured, so it lowers your W-2 Box 1 wages. A teacher in the 22 percent bracket gives up about 78 cents of take-home for every dollar that goes into the retirement system, because the other 22 cents would have gone to the IRS anyway.
Now the counterintuitive half. The pick-up does not reduce your Social Security and Medicare wages. Boxes 3 and 5 on your W-2 stay at your full contract salary, which is why the FICA lines on your stub look larger than you would expect from your taxable pay. The same rule applies to a supplemental 403(b) or 457(b): pre-tax for income tax, never for FICA. That is the ordering this calculator uses, and it is where most teacher paycheck estimates go wrong.
State treatment is not uniform. Most states follow the federal exclusion, but Pennsylvania and New Jersey tax pick-up contributions as current-year state income, and New York adds 414(h) contributions back for state purposes. If you teach in one of those three, expect slightly higher state tax than the estimate above. If you are stacking a supplemental 403(b) on top of the mandatory plan, the 401(k) paycheck impact calculator models the same trade-off dollar by dollar.
Union dues, and where they land on your stub
NEA national dues run roughly $200 to $234 a year and AFT national roughly $150, but the state affiliate is usually the biggest slice: California CTA alone charges $899 for 2026-27 on top of the NEA share. All in, most full-time teachers pay somewhere between $500 and $1,200, which is why this tool defaults to $900.
Dues sit at the bottom of the stub because they are a post-tax deduction. The TCJA suspension of miscellaneous itemized deductions under section 67(g) was made permanent by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, which struck the sunset that would have brought the deduction back for 2026. A few above-the-line exceptions survived, for Armed Forces reservists, qualified performing artists, fee-basis government officials and certain disabled-employee expenses. None of them reach a classroom teacher. A handful of states (New York, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Minnesota among them) still allow some deduction on the state return, which this estimate does not model.
Ten-month or twelve-month pay: what actually changes
Nothing about your taxes. Your annual salary, annual withholding and annual net are identical on a 21-check schedule and a 26-check schedule. What changes is cash flow: 21 or 22 larger checks and two or three summer months with no deposit, against 24 or 26 smaller ones that keep arriving in July. Switch the paycheck chips above to see both shapes side by side.
The election is usually sticky. Spreading ten months of work across twelve months of pay pushes income into the next calendar year, which makes it a deferral arrangement under section 409A, so most districts let you choose once a year and hold you to it. Decide before the window closes rather than in October.
For exact per-state withholding, health premiums included in the math, and saved profiles that let you hold two district offers next to each other, download the Stub44 Salary Calculator app.
Assumptions and limitations
- 2026 tax year. Federal brackets, the standard deduction ($16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly), the $184,500 Social Security wage base, the 0.9 percent Additional Medicare thresholds and the $24,500 elective deferral limit all come from the 2026 figures.
- State tax is a simplified single effective rate. No-income-tax states are 0, graduated states use one representative rate for a middle-income earner rather than bracketed math, and you can substitute your own rate in the advanced field. Local and city income tax (New York City, Philadelphia, Ohio school district income tax) and state-specific items such as California SDI are not modeled.
- Pension rates are approximate and editable. The per-state defaults are representative employee contribution rates, not a promise about your plan. Several are tiered by hire date or salary band: NYSTRS Tier 6 runs 3 to 6 percent by wage band, and PSERS classes T-E, T-F and T-G differ. Kentucky bundles retiree medical into its rate, Utah reflects a noncontributory tier, and most Nevada school employees are on the employer-pay contribution arrangement, where the district pays the contribution in exchange for a reduced salary schedule, so nothing that size shows up as a paycheck line.
- Union dues are post-tax. They reduce net pay dollar for dollar and touch no tax base. State-return deductions in the few states that allow them are ignored.
- Single and married filing jointly only. Head of household and married filing separately are not modeled, and the calculator assumes the standard deduction with no credits.
- Health insurance is out of scope. A district medical, dental or vision premium under a Section 125 plan would cut all three wage bases and is not included here.
- Medicare still applies when Social Security does not. State and local employees hired after March 31, 1986 owe mandatory Medicare, so a non-covered teacher shows a zero OASDI line and a nonzero Medicare line. Only continuous employment with the same employer since before April 1986 avoids both, which the tool does not model.
- Level withholding. Social Security is capped on annual wages and smoothed across your checks. Real payroll stops OASDI mid-year once you cross the wage base, so late checks are larger. This is an estimate, not filing-grade output.
Related calculators
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about teacher take-home pay calculator
Do teachers pay Social Security?
About 40 percent of US public school teachers do not. In Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas, most public school teachers are in non-covered employment: no 6.2 percent Social Security tax comes out of the check, and no Social Security credits accrue from that job. Georgia and Rhode Island vary by district, so check your own pay stub before trusting the default.
If I do not pay Social Security, do I still pay Medicare?
Yes, if you were hired after March 31, 1986. Mandatory Medicare coverage applies to state and local government employees hired or rehired after that date, so 1.45 percent still comes out even when the Social Security line is blank. Teachers in that situation are called Medicare Qualified Government Employees. Only someone in continuous employment with the same school district since before April 1986 escapes both taxes. That group is small and getting smaller.
Is my TRS pension contribution pre-tax?
For federal income tax, yes, in nearly every state, through the IRC section 414(h)(2) employer pick-up. It lowers your W-2 Box 1 wages, so a teacher in the 22 percent bracket pays roughly 78 cents of real money for each dollar contributed. It does not lower your Social Security and Medicare wages, which is why the FICA lines on your stub are computed on full gross (Boxes 3 and 5 stay at your contract salary). Our 401(k) paycheck impact calculator shows the same pre-tax mechanic on the private-sector side.
Are union dues tax deductible in 2026?
No, not on a federal return. The TCJA suspension of miscellaneous itemized deductions under IRC section 67(g) was made permanent by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, so the 2026 return that some teachers were waiting for never arrived. NEA, AFT and state affiliate dues are a post-tax payroll deduction: they cut your net pay dollar for dollar and reduce no tax base. Narrow above-the-line exceptions survive for reservists, performing artists and fee-basis officials, and none of them cover a classroom teacher. A few states still allow a deduction on the state return.
How much do teacher union dues cost per year?
Combined national, state and local dues typically run $500 to $1,200, with $800 to $1,000 the common band. NEA national dues are roughly $200 to $234 and AFT national is roughly $150. The state affiliate is where most of the money goes: California CTA alone is $899 a year, and Oregon affiliates run near $1,000 all-in. This calculator defaults to $900 a year, and you can switch the field to a per-paycheck amount if that is how it appears on your stub.
What percentage of my salary goes to my pension?
Most states take 5 to 12 percent. The national median employee contribution is 6.2 percent in Social-Security-covered plans and 9.0 percent in non-covered plans, since a plan that replaces Social Security has to be funded more heavily. The extremes run from the Utah noncontributory tier at 0.7 percent to Ohio STRS at 14 percent and Missouri PSRS at 14.5 percent. The rate in this tool is a starting point per state, so edit it to match your stub.
Does taking the 12-month pay option lower my take-home pay?
No. Your annual salary, annual taxes and annual net are identical either way. You are choosing between larger checks for 10 months with no summer deposits, or smaller checks spread over the full year. In many districts the election is made once a year and cannot be changed mid-year, because spreading pay into the next calendar year is a deferral arrangement under section 409A. Run 22 and 26 checks in the tool above to see both cash-flow shapes, or use the paycheck by pay frequency calculator.
WEP and GPO were repealed, so does that change my paycheck?
No. The Social Security Fairness Act, signed in January 2025, repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset. That changed how retirement benefits are calculated for people with a non-covered pension, not how payroll withholding works. A teacher in a non-covered district still has zero Social Security tax taken out today, and still earns no Social Security credits from that job.