State unemployment insurance taxable wage bases and new employer tax rates by US state
For each US state and DC, the taxable wage base (the per-employee annual earnings cap on which unemployment insurance tax is owed) and the tax rate assigned to new employers — sourced from each state's labor department or employment security agency. Answers 'what is the unemployment tax wage base in [state]', 'what UI rate do new employers pay in [state]', 'SUTA wage base by state 2026', and 'state unemployment insurance taxable wage base comparison'. The federal FUTA wage base is $7,000 and has not changed since 1983, but states range from $7,000 (California, several others) to over $72,000 (Washington), a 10× difference in the tax base for the same employee. New employer rates also vary widely. Changes take effect annually and states announce at different times (some January 1, some July 1, some fiscal year). No existing source cross-references all 50 states with per-state citations to the actual .gov announcement.
The data
| State | Taxable wage base | New employer UI tax rate | Experienced employer rate range | Effective year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | $7,000 | 3.4 percent | 1.5 percent to 6.2 percent | 2026 |
| New Jersey | $44,800 | 0.026825 | 2026 |
Where this came from
Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 2 sources this dataset was assembled from.
- edd.ca.govhttps://edd.ca.gov/en/payroll_taxes/rates_and_withholding/
- nj.govhttps://www.nj.gov/labor/ea/employer-services/rate-info/
Machine-readable
- data.jsonThe whole dataset — every record with its source URL and source quote.
- Open Knowledge Format bundleOne JSON object per line — every record's frontmatter and quoted span exactly as it is held here, in one fetch.
- How this is made and checkedWhat "verified against source" does and does not mean.