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State Unemployment Tax (SUTA/SUI)
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA/SUI) paystub meaning: The state tax that funds unemployment benefits — employer-paid in 47 states, so for most workers it is...
The state tax that funds unemployment benefits — employer-paid in 47 states, so for most workers it is never actually deducted from the paycheck.
SUTA — written SUI on most stubs, and called unemployment insurance in most state statutes — is the tax that pays unemployment benefits in your state. In the large majority of states it is an employer-only tax. So the honest answer to "how much SUTA came out of my check?" is usually: none. If SUI appears on your stub at all, it normally sits in an employer-contributions box, printed for information, not subtracted from your pay. Three states do take a worker contribution, and there it is a genuine deduction: - Alaska, 2026: 0.50% of wages, up to a taxable wage base of $54,200. - Pennsylvania: 0.07% of gross wages — 70 cents per $1,000 — at the rate in effect since 2023, with no wage cap at all. - New Jersey, 2026: a 0.3825% worker rate on the first $44,800, usually printed on the stub bundled with the 0.0425% workforce development contribution as one "UI/WF/SWF" line. The employer side is not a flat rate anywhere. Each state sets its own taxable wage base — $7,000 in California, $44,800 in New Jersey for 2026, $54,200 in Alaska for 2026 — then assigns every employer a rate inside a published range based on its experience rating, meaning how much its former employees have actually drawn in benefits. California's 2026 employer range runs 1.5% to 6.2% under Schedule F+; Alaska's 2026 range runs 1.00% to 5.40%. A company that lays people off repeatedly pays more per head than the one next door. In the other 47 states and the District of Columbia, none of this touches your take-home pay.
Tax entries on a pay statement depend on taxable wages, current employee elections, filing status, pay frequency, jurisdiction, and current agency instructions. Compare the current-period amount with year-to-date totals and the employer-issued record before treating it as final.
When this term appears on a statement, read its label, current amount, year-to-date amount, pay-period context, and any adjacent rate or hours together. Resolve a mismatch with the original issuer or the cited authority rather than changing a record to force a preferred result.
Example
Alaska, 2026. You earn $2,100 per semi-monthly check. The employee UI deduction is $2,100 × 0.50% = $10.50, and it keeps coming until year-to-date wages reach $54,200 — at which point the line stops for the rest of the year, having taken $54,200 × 0.50% = $271.00. The same $2,100 in Pennsylvania produces $2,100 × 0.07% = $1.47. Pennsylvania caps nothing, so that $1.47 appears on the December check exactly as it did in January, for a full-year total of 0.07% of everything you earned. The same $2,100 in Ohio, Texas or Georgia produces a $0.00 employee unemployment deduction, because there the tax belongs entirely to the employer.
Source: Alaska Department of Labor — 2026 Unemployment Insurance Tax Rates
Related terms
- Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) — A 6.0% federal tax on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages, paid entirely by the employer and never withheld from your paycheck.