State Paycheck Deductions Explained: PFML, FAMLI & SUI 2026

The Alphabet Soup on Your Pay Stub

A modern pay stub can look like a bowl of letters. Past the familiar federal withholding, Social Security, and Medicare lines, many workers find one or two extra deductions with unfamiliar names: PFML, FAMLI, SDI, PL, SUI.

These all belong to one family: state paycheck protection deductions. Your state requires them, not the federal government, and they fund programs that protect your income when life interrupts work.

There are four main types you might see:

• Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML, PFL, FAMLI, PL): insurance that replaces part of your wages during leave.
• State Disability Insurance (SDI, TDI, DBL): short-term disability coverage for your own illness or injury.
• Long-term care insurance (WA Cares): currently unique to Washington State.
• Employee unemployment insurance (SUI, SUTA): the worker share of unemployment tax, withheld in only three states.

If your state has none of these, your pay stub will simply show federal tax, FICA, and state income tax. If you moved from Texas to Washington and your paycheck suddenly looks smaller, these deductions are a big part of why.

What Each Program Actually Does (and Whether It’s a Tax)

The names are confusing partly because each state picked its own. Here is what each category actually buys you.

Paid Family and Medical Leave

This is the biggest category. PFML programs pay a percentage of your wages while you are out for a serious health condition, bonding with a new child, or caring for a sick family member. Some states call it PFL, some call it FAMLI, and Oregon just calls it Paid Leave. The coverage is similar: partial wage replacement during qualifying leave.

State Disability Insurance

SDI, TDI (Temporary Disability Insurance), and DBL (Disability Benefits Law) all cover your own short-term disability. If you cannot work because of a non-work injury or illness, including pregnancy, these programs pay benefits. California folds disability and family leave into one program under the CASDI label. New York and New Jersey keep disability and family leave as separate lines.

Long-Term Care Insurance

WA Cares is the only program of its kind. Washington State withholds 0.58% of gross wages to fund a future long-term care benefit for residents who need help with daily living tasks. It is fully employee-funded with no wage cap.

Employee Unemployment Insurance

Unemployment insurance is normally paid entirely by the employer. In Alaska, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, though, workers chip in a small share too. It shows up as SUI or SUTA on the stub.

So Is It a Tax?

Strictly speaking, no. These are insurance premiums collected through payroll. But the practical difference matters at tax time. Employee contributions are taken after tax, meaning they count as part of your taxable wages. Unlike a traditional 401(k) contribution, they do not reduce your federal income tax. The IRS confirmed this treatment for PFML programs in Revenue Ruling 2025-4.

2026 Employee Contribution Rates by State

Here is the reference table. Rates shown are the employee share for 2026, and employers often pay an additional share on top. A few states publish final rates late in the year, so verify with your state agency if your stub differs.

Maryland’s FAMLI program is coming, but employee contributions do not begin until January 1, 2027, so it is not yet a 2026 paycheck deduction. If your state is not in this table, you most likely have no state paycheck protection deduction at all.

Decoding the Pay-Stub Label

Payroll software rarely spells these out. The deduction usually appears as a cramped abbreviation. Here is how to translate the common ones.

• CASDI or CA SDI: California State Disability Insurance, which also funds Paid Family Leave.
• WA PFML EE: Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave, employee share. The “EE” means employee.
• WA Cares: Washington’s long-term care insurance premium.
• CO FAMLI or FAMLI EE: Colorado Family and Medical Leave Insurance.
• MA PFML: Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave.
• NY PFL: New York Paid Family Leave. Separate from NY DBL, the state disability line.
• NJ FLI: New Jersey Family Leave Insurance. NJ SDI or NJ TDI is the disability line, and NJ UI/WF/SWF bundles unemployment, workforce development, and supplemental workforce funds.
• OR Paid Leave or OR PFML: Oregon Paid Leave.
• PA UC: Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation, employee share.

If a deduction on your stub does not match any of these and you are unsure, ask your payroll department for a labeled breakdown. They are required to be able to explain every line.

Will You Get This Money Back?

This is the question most workers really want answered, and the honest answer is no, not the way you might hope.

When too much federal income tax is withheld, you get a refund. State paycheck protection deductions do not work that way. They are premiums. The money buys you insurance coverage, the same way your auto insurance premium is not refunded just because you did not crash your car.

You “get the money back” only by using the coverage. If you take qualifying family or medical leave and file a claim, the program pays you a percentage of your wages. For many workers that benefit is far larger than years of contributions combined. That is the point of insurance.

Two tax details are worth knowing:

• Benefits can be taxable. If you receive paid leave benefits, the state may report them on a Form 1099, and they may count as taxable income.
• Contributions may be deductible. Under IRS Revenue Ruling 2025-4, employee PFML contributions can be deducted on Schedule A as state taxes paid, subject to the SALT cap, if you itemize. Most filers take the standard deduction, so this only helps itemizers.

How These Deductions Shrink Your Take-Home Pay

Percentages feel small until you put a salary behind them. Consider a worker earning $70,000 a year, paid biweekly.

In a State With No Program (Texas)

Texas has no state income tax and no paycheck protection deductions. This worker pays federal income tax and FICA, and that is it on the state side. Nothing extra comes out.

In Washington

Washington also has no state income tax, so people often assume the paychecks match Texas. They do not. On $70,000, the worker pays roughly $406 a year for WA Cares (0.58%) plus the employee PFML share, which adds several hundred more dollars. That is real money missing from each check, even with zero state income tax.

In Colorado

Colorado has a flat state income tax and FAMLI. The FAMLI employee share alone is about $308 a year on $70,000 (0.44%), withheld on top of state income tax. A Colorado paycheck is noticeably smaller than a naive “federal plus state tax” estimate suggests.

This is exactly the gap that trips people up when comparing job offers across states. A higher salary in Washington or Oregon can deliver less take-home pay than expected once these premiums are counted. To see the real number for your situation, the Pay44 paycheck calculator factors in state PFML, FAMLI, disability, and unemployment deductions alongside federal and state income tax for all 50 states. You can also browse the full set of paycheck tools or compare take-home pay between two states before you accept an offer.