- Federal brackets are identical nationwide; the state layer is what makes take-home pay differ from one state to the next.
- A top rate applies only to the last dollar earned, so it always overstates what a salary is actually taxed at on average.
- Nine states tax no wage income at all, and several more apply a single flat rate rather than a bracket schedule.
- Social Security and Medicare withholding is not income tax, but it comes off the same paycheque — every ladder here includes it.
How the bracket tables work
Wage income is taxed in two layers. The federal layer is the same wherever you live; the state layer sits on top of it and is set independently, which is why the same salary produces a different tax bill in Austin and in San Jose.
The table above shows the second layer only — each state’s own top rate, how many brackets it splits its income scale into, and how much income its standard deduction shelters before any tax is charged. Nine states levy nothing at all on wages, which is why the bottom of that table is a block of zeroes rather than a gentle taper.
Open any state for its full schedule and, underneath it, a ladder showing what six real salaries produce once both layers and payroll taxes are applied. That second table is the one worth reading — a top rate on its own tells you almost nothing about what you keep.
The math
Both layers work the same way. Income is divided into bands, each band has its own rate, and each rate applies only to the income inside its own band. A rate described as “the top bracket” is charged on the last dollar earned, never on the whole salary — which is why an average rate is always well below a marginal one.
Before any of that, the standard deduction is subtracted from income. The federal deduction applies everywhere; a state may set its own, a smaller one, or none. The tax-free column above reports the state figure only, and shows a dash for states that have no wage income tax to deduct against.
The ladder on each state page adds Social Security and Medicare withholding. Those are payroll taxes rather than income tax, but they come out of the same paycheque, so leaving them out would overstate take-home pay by thousands a year — the single most common error in a back-of-envelope estimate.
Worked example
Take two states at the extremes of the table. On the same wage income, the state with the highest top rate charges roughly twelve percentage points more on the last dollar than a state with no income tax at all — but the average rate on a mid-range salary differs by far less, because most of that income is taxed in the lower bands.
That is the practical lesson of the table: a headline top rate is a poor guide to a mid-career salary, and a no-income-tax state usually recovers some of the difference through sales and property taxes this page does not model. Use the comparison pages, which compute take-home at six salaries in both states, before drawing a conclusion from a rate alone.
Key terms
- Marginal rate
- The rate charged on the next dollar you earn. It is the rate that decides what a raise or a bonus is worth after tax.
- Average rate
- Total income tax divided by total income. Always lower than the marginal rate whenever more than one bracket is in play.
- Standard deduction
- Income subtracted before rates are applied. The federal amount applies everywhere; state amounts differ and some states have none.
- Bracket threshold
- The income at which one band ends and the next rate begins. Some states index these to inflation each year and some leave them fixed for decades.