South Dakota Employee Cost Calculator

An $85,000 hire in South Dakota costs the employer about $108,953 a year at the defaults on this page, or $9,079 a month and $52.38 an hour on 2,080 hours. The $23,953 above salary is the burden: employer FICA, federal and state unemployment, workers comp, benefits, paid time off, and overhead. The calculator pre-fills South Dakota's SUI estimate; every other field is editable.

South Dakota charges state unemployment insurance on the first $15,000 of each employee's wages, at an estimated 1.2% for a new employer. On an $85,000 salary that is $180 for the year, $128 below the $308 median across the 51 jurisdictions on this site. The wage base is met in week 10 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.

South Dakota 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 South Dakota offer competitive at a lower number.

The largest line in the South Dakota 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 South Dakota's rate filings, so replace the default with the rate on your policy.

For a staffing agency placing a W2 employee in South Dakota at this salary, $108,953 is the floor a bill rate has to clear: $52.38 an hour before any gross margin. In South Dakota, SUI is a small share of that floor, so the bill rate math is driven by FICA, benefits, and the workers comp class, not the state.