What is SDI on my paycheck? Disability, paid leave, and transit lines

SDI is one member of a family of state-run employee payroll programs that can withhold from a paycheck: disability insurance, paid family and medical leave, long-term care, and in one state a statewide transit tax. They are the deductions people most often cannot identify on a stub, because the label is usually a three- or four-letter code and nothing on the page explains it.

This page explains what those rows are and how a paycheck estimate should treat them. It does not publish rates or wage caps, because those are re-set every calendar year and a stale number is worse than no number. Verify the current figures with the state agency named on your stub or with your employer's payroll department.

The abbreviations you are likely to see

Labels vary by employer and payroll vendor, and the same program can be printed several different ways. These are the common ones:

• SDI — state disability insurance. Pays partial wage replacement when you cannot work because of an illness or injury that is not job-related.
• TDI — temporary disability insurance. The same general idea under a different state's name.
• PFML or PFL — paid family and medical leave, or paid family leave. Pays partial wage replacement for bonding with a new child, caring for a family member, or a serious health condition, depending on the state's rules.
• FAMLI — Colorado's name for its paid family and medical leave program.
• WA Cares — Washington's long-term care program, which is separate from that state's paid-leave program and can appear as its own row.
• Transit — a statewide transit tax withheld from wages in Oregon. It is not an insurance program, but it behaves like one on the stub: a small percentage line that most workers cannot place.
• SUI or WFD — in a small number of states, part of the unemployment or workforce-development contribution is withheld from the worker rather than paid entirely by the employer.

A label alone does not establish which program it is, who administers it, or how it is treated. If the code is ambiguous, ask payroll before reconciling anything.

These are not FICA, and they are not state income tax

It is easy to lump every small percentage deduction together. They are separate systems. Social Security and Medicare are federal programs with their own wage rules — see what FICA is on your paycheck. State income tax withholding is a third, different calculation driven by your state withholding certificate.

An employee payroll program is its own line, with its own rate, its own definition of covered wages, and often its own annual wage cap. That is why one of these rows can stop partway through the year while your income tax withholding keeps going, and why two workers in different states can see completely different sets of rows on otherwise similar stubs.

For a walk through the rest of the page your stub prints, see how to read a pay stub.

Where TakeHome IQ models the employee share from a published rate

In 11 states, the employee portion is modeled from each program's published rate and wage cap, so the estimate can include the line without asking you for it:

• CA SDI
• CO FAMLI
• CT PFML
• MA PFML
• MN PFML
• NJ TDI
• NJ FLI
• NJ SUI/WFD
• NY SDI
• NY PFL
• OR PFL
• OR Transit
• PR SDI
• RI TDI
• WA PFML
• WA Cares

Each of these is an estimate of the withholding line, not a certification of your employer's method. Employer elections, private-plan approvals, exemptions, mid-year rule changes, and cross-state work arrangements can all produce a different real result.

Where no single rate can be assumed

Three more states work differently. In Hawaii (TDI), Delaware (Paid Leave), and Maine (PFML), each employer decides how much of the premium to withhold from the worker within the limits the state allows. There is no single number that is right for everyone, so guessing one would put a wrong figure on the estimate for most workers in those states.

For those, TakeHome IQ asks you to enter the amount from your own stub and includes it in the result. That is a smaller ask than it looks: the number is printed on the page in front of you, and entering it once is more accurate than any assumed rate.

Why last year's rate is the wrong rate

These programs are re-set every January 1, and they can move a long way. New Jersey's combined worker rate for temporary disability and family leave fell by roughly a quarter from 2025 to 2026. Minnesota's paid-leave program did not exist in 2025 at all. A calculator that quietly reuses last year's rate will be wrong in a way you can see directly on your stub.

TakeHome IQ therefore keeps these programs separate from its state income-tax data and resolves each tax year against that year's own published dataset, with no carry-forward. Where a program was not in force in a given year, the app records it as not in force rather than producing a zero by accident — because a zero that means “no data” and a zero that means “this program did not exist yet” are not the same answer.

The full picture of which states, certificates, and local jurisdictions are covered is on the coverage page.

Why this page does not publish the rates

Every rate and wage cap here changes annually, several change by legislative action mid-cycle, and a published number that has gone stale is a liability rather than a help. Describing the mechanism is durable; quoting a figure is not. Check the current numbers with the state agency that administers the program, and treat any estimate — including TakeHome IQ's — as a figure to compare against your stub, not a statement of what you owe.

Frequently asked questions