How to Read Your Pay Stub (Every Line Explained)
Most pay stubs look like they were designed to be confusing. Half the lines are abbreviations, there are two or three different “taxable wages” numbers, and the amount that actually hits your bank account is tucked away in a corner.
The good news is that every stub follows the same basic logic. Once you’ve seen one broken down, you can read any of them.
A real example
Here’s a bi-weekly paycheck for someone earning $65,000 a year in Ohio. They put 5% into a 401(k) and pay $2,400 a year for health insurance through work.
| Line | This period |
|---|---|
| Gross pay | $2,500.00 |
| 401(k) | -$125.00 |
| Medical (pre-tax) | -$92.31 |
| Federal income tax | -$190.08 |
| Social Security (OASDI) | -$149.28 |
| Medicare | -$34.91 |
| Ohio state tax | -$32.95 |
| Net pay | $1,875.48 |
So out of $2,500, about $1,875 lands in the bank. That’s 75%. The rest isn’t all “taxes”, though, and that distinction matters.
Gross pay
This is the number from your offer letter, divided by the number of paychecks. $65,000 over 26 paychecks is $2,500. If you’re hourly, this section shows your hours times your rate, and overtime usually gets its own line.
Pre-tax deductions come out first
The 401(k) and medical lines are taken out before income tax is calculated. That’s why they’re often grouped at the top or labeled “pre-tax.”
The $125 going into the 401(k) isn’t gone. It’s still your money, just moved to a retirement account. And because it comes out before income tax, the real hit to your take-home pay is less than $125.
Health premiums usually run through what’s called a Section 125 plan. You might see it labeled MED125, SEC125 or just “Medical.” These are even better than 401(k) money on the tax side, because they also skip Social Security and Medicare tax.
The tax lines
Here’s what the common abbreviations mean:
- FED WH, FIT or FWT: federal income tax withholding. How much gets taken depends on your W-4, so two people with the same salary can have very different amounts here.
- OASDI, SS or FICA-SS: Social Security, a flat 6.2%. It stops for the year once you’ve earned $184,500 in 2026.
- MED, MEDFICA or FICA-MED: Medicare, 1.45% of everything, with no cap. Once your pay passes $200,000 for the year, your employer withholds an extra 0.9%. That part is yours alone; the employer doesn’t match it.
- SIT, SWT or ST WH: state income tax. Nine states don’t have one, so you may not see this line at all.
- SDI, FLI, PFL or TDI: state disability or paid family leave insurance. California, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Massachusetts and a handful of other states take this out.
- LOCAL, CITY or EIT: city or county income tax. Common in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan and New York City.
In our Ohio example there’s no city tax line to keep things simple. If this person lived in Columbus, which charges 2.5%, there’d be one more deduction of around $60.
Why Social Security looks slightly off
If you check the math, 6.2% of $2,500 is $155. But the stub says $149.28.
That’s the health premium at work. Social Security is calculated on $2,500 minus the $92.31 medical deduction, so $2,407.69. The 401(k) money does not get this treatment, which is why it’s still included.
This is also why your stub may show different “taxable wages” figures for federal tax, Social Security and Medicare. They really are different numbers.
YTD columns
Most stubs have a year-to-date column next to the current period. It’s worth a glance a few times a year, mostly to:
- confirm your 401(k) contributions are on track for your goal
- see when you’ll hit the Social Security cap (high earners get a noticeable raise in net pay late in the year when OASDI stops)
- compare your federal withholding to what you expect to owe
Things worth double checking
Mistakes on pay stubs aren’t rare, especially after a raise, a move, or a benefits change. A few quick checks:
- Is the state right? If you moved or started working remotely from a different state, payroll doesn’t always catch it.
- Did your raise actually show up? Compare gross pay to your new salary divided by your number of paychecks.
- Is federal withholding way out of line? If it looks too high or too low, your W-4 is the first place to look. Our guide on filling out a W-4 walks through it.
- Are benefits deductions matching what you picked at open enrollment?
If something looks wrong, HR or payroll can fix it going forward, and most mistakes get corrected on the next check.
Check your own stub
Plug your salary, state and deductions into the paycheck calculator and compare the result to your stub. If the net pay is within a few dollars per check, your withholding is in good shape. A bigger gap usually means your W-4 settings or a benefit deduction explains the difference.