Alaska Employee Cost Calculator

An $85,000 hire in Alaska costs the employer about $109,767 a year at the defaults on this page, or $9,147 a month and $52.77 an hour on 2,080 hours. The $24,767 above salary is the burden: employer FICA, federal and state unemployment, workers comp, benefits, paid time off, and overhead. The calculator pre-fills Alaska's SUI estimate; every other field is editable.

Alaska charges state unemployment insurance on the first $49,700 of each employee's wages, at an estimated 2.0% for a new employer. On an $85,000 salary that is $994 for the year, $686 above the $308 median across the 51 jurisdictions on this site. The wage base is met in week 31 of a full-time year, so SUI stops accruing after that and the annual figure is the cap. Experience-rated employers pay more or less than the new-employer rate, so replace it with the rate on your annual notice.

Alaska has no state income tax on wages. That changes nothing in the employer's cost above, but an $85,000 salary goes further for the employee than the same salary in a taxing state, which can make a Alaska offer competitive at a lower number.

The largest line in the Alaska total is employer FICA at $6,503, which is federal and identical in every state. Benefits at 8.0% add $6,800, and 15 days of PTO cost $4,904 in salary paid for hours not worked. Workers comp at 1.5% adds $1,275; the real rate depends on the class code and on Alaska's rate filings, so replace the default with the rate on your policy.

For a staffing agency placing a W2 employee in Alaska at this salary, $109,767 is the floor a bill rate has to clear: $52.77 an hour before any gross margin. In Alaska, SUI is a larger share of that floor than in most states, so a bill rate built on the national 18% burden assumption will be short. Recover it in the markup.