Short-Term Disability Calculator 2026: What You Pay and Get

Twelve States Run a Program in 2026, and the Other 38 Do Not

Short-term disability is not a federal program. There is no federal check for being too sick or hurt to work, so if nobody chose to buy you a policy, you do not have one. Twelve states have decided to run the insurance themselves: money comes out of every covered check, goes into a state fund, and pays you a weekly amount when a doctor says you cannot work for a while. Each one is its own program with its own name, its own rate, its own wage base and its own benefit table, and this page is the lookup for all twelve.

Two things people assume and then discover are not true:

• Maryland is not on the list yet. Its program exists in law, but contributions do not start until January 1, 2027 and the first benefits come after that, so a Maryland worker has no 2026 deduction and no 2026 benefit.
• Connecticut runs one fund, not two. CT Paid Leave covers your own serious health condition alongside family leave, so it belongs in this table, but it is the same program and the same payroll deduction, not a separate disability policy.

If you work in a state that is not on the list, your short-term disability is whatever your staffing agency or hospital offers: a private group policy with an elimination period measured in days. The tax rule further down this page applies to those policies too, and it is the same rule.

What Comes Out of Your Check in 2026

The employee-side rate and the wage base are what the state agency publishes for 2026. The last two columns are the same program priced at $184,500, which is the 2026 Social Security wage base that most of these programs use as their ceiling, so the column is the most a worker can be charged in 2026, not a typical amount.

State	What you pay	Wages it applies to	You, at $184,500	Employer, at $184,500
California	1.3% of your wages	Every wage dollar	$2,398.50	Nothing
New York	0.5% of your wages, stopped at $0.60 a week	Every wage dollar	$31.20	The employer buys the policy
New Jersey	0.19% of your wages	The first $171,100 a year	$325.09	$171.10
Rhode Island	1.1% of your wages	The first $100,000 a year	$1,100.00	Nothing
Connecticut	0.5% of your wages	The first $184,500 a year	$922.50	Nothing
Washington	0.8072% of your wages	The first $184,500 a year	$1,489.21	$595.64
Oregon	0.6% of your wages	The first $184,500 a year	$1,107.00	$738.00
Massachusetts	0.46% of your wages	The first $184,500 a year	$848.70	$774.90
Colorado	0.44% of your wages	The first $184,500 a year	$811.80	$811.80
Minnesota	0.44% of your wages	The first $184,500 a year	$811.80	$811.80
Delaware	0.4% of your wages	The first $184,500 a year	$738.00	$738.00
Maine	0.5% of your wages	The first $184,500 a year	$922.50	$922.50

In the eight states that split the premium (New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Colorado, Minnesota, Delaware, Maine), the two money columns add up to the total rate the state announces. Washington is the clearest: 1.13% in total, of which 0.8072% comes out of your check and 0.3228% is the employer’s share.

Three details that a rate table always hides:

• New York caps the deduction at $0.60 a week. Half a percent of pay sounds trivial and it is, but the cap means a New York nurse at $1,000 a week and one at $3,000 a week both pay 60 cents. Your employer buys the actual insurance.
• New Jersey stops at a dollar amount, not a wage amount. The state publishes a maximum worker contribution of $325.09 for 2026, and withholding ends there.
• California charges the steepest rate of the twelve, 1.3%, and it has no wage base at all, so the deduction never stops. Rhode Island is next at 1.1%, but it stops at a $100,000 wage base and a published ceiling of $1,100.00.

What the State Pays You

Benefit rules are where the twelve programs differ most. Some print one fraction and one ceiling, which you can multiply yourself. Others publish a sliding scale, and the honest statement is the top of it.

State	How the weekly benefit is built	Longest paid	Time you wait
California	A five-tier EDD table: a flat $50, 90% of pay, a flat $1,127, or 70%, capped at $1,765	52 weeks	7 unpaid days; the eighth day is the first payable day
New York	50% of your weekly pay, capped at $170	26 weeks	benefits begin the 8th day of disability
New Jersey	85% of your weekly pay, capped at $1,119	26 weeks	one unpaid waiting week
Rhode Island	4.62% of the wages in your highest quarter, capped at $1,103, never below $148	30 weeks	no waiting period, but you must be unable to work for at least 7 days
Connecticut	95% up to $677.60, then $643.72 plus 60% of the rest, capped at $1,016.40	12 weeks	not published in the Authority’s policies
Washington	90% of your weekly pay at the top of the scale, capped at $1,647	12 weeks	one unpaid waiting week
Oregon	90% of your weekly pay at the top of the scale, capped at $1,636.56, never below $70.51	12 weeks	no waiting week
Massachusetts	80% up to half the state average wage ($961.24), then 50% above it, capped at $1,230.39	26 weeks	7-day unpaid waiting period
Colorado	90% of your weekly pay at the top of the scale, capped at $1,448	12 weeks	no waiting period
Minnesota	90% of your weekly pay at the top of the scale, capped at $1,423	12 weeks	not published; your condition must last more than 7 days
Delaware	80% of your weekly pay, capped at $900	6 weeks	not published in the documents we saved
Maine	Maine has not published a 2026 weekly amount	12 weeks	7-day waiting period for your own medical condition

California is the one worth reading slowly, because its table has five outcomes and people quote the wrong one. EDD sets the amount from what you earned in the highest quarter of your base period: under $300 for the quarter you get nothing, from $300 to $722.49 you get a flat $50 a week, up to $16,279.90 you get 90% of your weekly wages, then a flat $1,127 a week, and above $20,931.30 you are back to 70%, capped at $1,765. A nurse who multiplies her pay by 70% gets a number EDD would only pay at the top of the scale.

Connecticut works on the same principle with different joints: 95% of your weekly wage up to $677.60, and above that $643.72 plus 60 cents for every extra dollar, capped at $1,016.40. The Authority’s own worked example is $701 a week becoming $657.76.

Is Short-Term Disability Taxed? It Depends on Who Paid the Premium

This is the question the state pages answer badly and the comparison sites skip. The rule is federal and it is one sentence. Section 105(a) of the tax code says that “amounts received by an employee through accident or health insurance for personal injuries or sickness shall be included in gross income” but only “to the extent” they “are attributable to contributions by the employer which were not includible in the gross income of the employee”, or are paid by the employer. Then section 105(e) pulls the state programs in: “amounts received from a sickness and disability fund for employees maintained under the law of a State” are treated as amounts received through accident or health insurance.

Read those two together and you get the whole test, which has nothing to do with which state you live in:

• You paid the whole premium with after-tax money, the benefit is not income. Publication 525 says it in one line: “If you pay the entire cost of an accident or health plan, don’t include any amounts you receive from the plan for personal injury or sickness as income on your tax return.” That is why California, funded entirely by worker deductions, prints “In most cases, Disability Insurance (DI) benefits are not taxable”, and why Rhode Island goes further and says its TDI benefits “Temporary Disability Insurance benefits are not subject to Federal or State income taxes; therefore, you will not receive a 1099-G form”.
• Your employer paid, and you never counted that money as income, the benefit is taxable. Where a program splits the premium, only the employer’s part of the benefit is income. Oregon states the split rule plainly: “For medical leave benefits, including additional pregnancy leave benefits, only the portion of benefits that are paid for by employer contributions is taxable”. Massachusetts does the same arithmetic for withholding: “For medical leave benefits paid to employees of employers with 25 or more employees, income taxes will be withheld on 60% of the benefit payment”.
• The part that pays your medical bills is a different category. Section 105(b) keeps out of income amounts paid “to reimburse the taxpayer for expenses incurred by him for the medical care”, even in a plan the employer funded. Lost wages are the taxable part, hospital bills are not.
• You cannot deduct the premiums. Publication 334 tells self-employed people “you can’t deduct premiums for a policy that pays for your lost earnings due to sickness or disability,” and Publication 502 puts “policies providing payment for loss of earnings” on the list of insurance premiums you can’t include in medical expenses. The reason is the trade: untaxed benefits, so no deduction for the cost of getting them.
• Self-employed is its own answer. Section 105(g) says the term employee “does not include an individual who is an employee within the meaning of section 401(c)(1)”, which is the self-employed. A 1099 contractor who buys their own disability policy paid it with after-tax money and cannot deduct it, so their benefit is not income either. The states handle the gap differently, and the honest ones say so: Colorado writes eligibility the other way round (“Most Colorado workers are eligible for FAMLI benefits, including self-employed individuals, independent contractors”), Minnesota says “Independent contractors, self-employed individuals, and Tribal Nations are not covered by Paid Leave, but they can opt in”, Maine that “If you’re self-employed, you’re only covered if you’ve chosen to opt in”, and Washington runs a page headed “Elective coverage opt in” for exactly that choice.

Payroll taxes are a separate line from income tax, and the states disagree with each other on purpose. New York’s Workers’ Compensation Board says DBL benefits “are subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes”, New Jersey treats TDI benefits as “taxable income for purposes of both the federal income tax and FICA (Social Security)”, and Maine says that for 2026 “no PFML benefits will be subject to payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare during 2026” and only from tax year 2027 will the taxable part be “treated as wages and reported on Form W-2”.

The Change That Landed in 2025 and Moved the 2026 Reporting

The IRS issued Revenue Ruling 2025-4, which is the guidance Oregon’s Department of Revenue points at for “payments under paid family and medical leave programs that are made on or after January 1, 2025”. It settles how a state-program benefit is treated and puts a reporting duty on the programs themselves, and Oregon adds that “the reporting requirements related to medical benefits established in the ruling are not required until calendar year 2027”. Then it states the part most of these pages skip: whether the benefit is income “is a matter of federal taxation, not state taxation”. Minnesota says it “will generally conform to the IRS conclusions about federal gross income”. Massachusetts says that “for the calendar year 2026, DFML will not withhold FICA (Social Security and Medicare) tax from PFML benefit payments”.

The practical reading: a state that withholds nothing from your benefit check in 2026 has not decided the benefit is tax-free. It has decided who does the reporting, which is a different question from who owes the tax.

Who Pays the Premium, and What Happens to the Benefit

State	Who funds it	What happens to the benefit
California	You pay the whole thing	Not taxed “In most cases, Disability Insurance (DI) benefits are not taxable” Form: Form 1099-G only in the taxable case
New York	Your employer buys the policy	Taxed as wages “Benefits paid by the employer or insurance carrier are subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes”
New Jersey	Split with your employer	Taxed “Temporary Disability Insurance benefits are considered taxable income for purposes of both the federal income tax and FICA (Social Security)”
Rhode Island	You pay the whole thing	Not taxed “Temporary Disability Insurance benefits are not subject to Federal or State income taxes; therefore, you will not receive a 1099-G form” Form: No 1099-G
Connecticut	You pay the whole thing	Taxed federally “that income will show in box 1 as ‘Unemployment Compensation’” Form: Form 1099-G from the insurer
Washington	Split with your employer	Medical leave: likely not taxed “we think it is likely that family leave benefits could be taxable and medical leave benefits would not” Form: 1099 for family leave only
Oregon	Split with your employer	Employer-paid part taxed “For medical leave benefits, including additional pregnancy leave benefits, only the portion of benefits that are paid for by employer contributions is taxable” Form: Form 1099-MISC for medical leave
Massachusetts	Split with your employer	Employer-paid part taxed “For medical leave benefits paid to employees of employers with 25 or more employees, income taxes will be withheld on 60% of the benefit payment” Form: Form 1099-G
Colorado	Split with your employer	Not taxed by Colorado “FAMLI benefits are not subject to state income tax” Form: Form 1099-G
Minnesota	Split with your employer	Follows the IRS rule “Minnesota will generally conform to the IRS conclusions about federal gross income” Form: Optional withholding set by statute
Delaware	Split with your employer	Taxed, withholding set “the default values are 10% withholding for federal taxes and 6% for state taxes”
Maine	Split with your employer	No payroll tax in 2026 “no PFML benefits will be subject to payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare during 2026” Form: Form 1099-G for 2026, Form W-2 from 2027

Four Things That Only Make Sense on a Nurse’s Pay Stub

Your benefit is built from the wages the state saw

Every program uses a base period, and the base period belongs to the state, not to your career. New Jersey computes from “the total wages you earned in New Jersey covered employment during the base year”, and California’s is built from “wages subject to SDI tax” paid roughly 5 to 18 months before the claim. So a nurse who worked a high-hour quarter in California and then got sick after moving to a staff job in Oregon is looking at two different base periods in two different states. Ask your payroll what was reported as covered wages in each state you worked; your total package is not necessarily what the state counted.

Per diem and stipends usually are not in the state’s wage number

The state formulas run on wages the program taxes, and a tax-free housing or meal stipend is generally not a wage the state taxed. Two consequences, both uncomfortable: your weekly deduction is smaller than you would guess, because it is charged on the taxable part, and your benefit can be smaller than your actual cost of living, because it is built on the same narrowed base. The calculator uses the gross weekly pay you enter, so enter the part of your check that the state’s program actually taxes and you will get the real answer instead of the flattering one.

The 12-week programs and the 52-week programs are not the same insurance

Connecticut, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota and Delaware pay for 12 weeks. California will pay up to 52 weeks and New York up to 26. If your recovery is a six-month problem, a twelve-week program is not disability insurance, it is a bridge, and what you need is either a private long-term disability policy or the state’s own longer program. This is the single most common gap between two contracts.

A waiting week is cash flow, not a technicality

Washington and New Jersey each start with an unpaid waiting week, California’s is 7 unpaid days, and Maine’s is 7 days. On a two-week contract with a Friday end date those days can land entirely inside an unpaid gap between assignments. If you have a gap week you cannot afford, the answer is a banked paid time-off balance or an emergency fund, not the state program.

Worked Example: the Same $1,875 a Week in Four States

A nurse on a 36-hour contract at a blended $52.08 an hour grosses $1,875 a week, which is $97,500 a year. Same person, same pay, four programs:

State	Out of each week	Out for the year	Weekly benefit if disabled	Income tax on it
California	$24.38	$1,267.50	$1,313	Not taxed
New York	$0.60	$31.20	$170	Taxed as wages
Washington	$15.13	$786.98	up to $1,647	Medical leave: likely not taxed
Massachusetts	$8.63	$448.50	$1,226	Employer-paid part taxed

The California and New York numbers are the two ends of the country. On the same $1,875 a week California takes $24.38, which is 41 times New York’s $0.60, and pays $1,313 against New York’s $170. California’s check is not ordinary income for a nurse whose premiums came only out of her own wages; New York’s own page says its check does carry Social Security and Medicare. Washington sits between them at $15.13 a week, and its medical-leave benefit is the one the state itself expects not to be taxed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is short-term disability taxable?

If you paid the whole premium with after-tax dollars, no. That covers California and Rhode Island and Connecticut’s worker-funded program, though Connecticut reports its benefits on a 1099-G in the box the form reserves for unemployment compensation. If your employer paid, in whole or in part, the benefit is income to the extent of the employer’s contribution. Section 105(a) is the rule, and the state pages quoted above are how each program applies it.

Do I get short-term disability in a state with no program?

Only what your employer offers. A group short-term disability policy is a benefit decision, not a legal requirement, and the staffing agency rather than the hospital is usually the one that decides. Check your benefits summary for “short-term disability”, the elimination period, and whether the premium is split with you, because that split is what determines whether the check is taxed.

How much does short-term disability pay?

In the twelve program states, between $50 and $1,765 a week, which is 50% of pay in New York and up to 90% in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota and the top tiers of California. The percentage that matters is the one your state prints, and the ceiling bites long before a travel rate: New York’s $170 maximum is already binding at $340 a week, and of the twelve only California’s $1,765 ceiling needs a wage above $2,000 to bite.

How long do benefits last?

From 6 weeks in Delaware to 52 weeks in California. Most of the newer programs are 12 weeks, and in the states that run one fund for family and medical leave together those are the same weeks in the same pot, so a leave you took for a family reason can be spent before your own recovery starts.

Can I collect from two states at once?

No, because a base period is made of the wages one state covered, but you can absolutely be mid-claim when you take a contract in a new state and then be reading two programs’ rules at once. The one combination people get wrong is disability plus unemployment: California’s own tax page warns that if you drew unemployment and then became disabled, the disability benefits are taxable.

Does it hurt my nursing license or my next contract?

A state disability claim is an insurance claim between you and a state fund. None of the twelve program pages behind this table makes a benefit claim a report to a licensing board or a line on a background check. What it does affect is your availability for the next 12-week contract, which is a real thing to plan around when your income is contract-by-contract.

What if I am 1099?

You are outside the state programs unless the state says otherwise. Colorado includes self-employed people in FAMLI, Minnesota, Maine and Washington let them opt in, and Oregon has a whole section for self-employed and independent contractors. Where none of that reaches you, a private individual policy is the route. Because you pay the premium yourself and cannot deduct it, the benefit you collect is not income, which is the one advantage of buying it as a contractor instead of taking it through an employer.

When do the 2027 numbers change?

Every year, and on different dates. Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts and New Jersey announce rates and wage bases in the autumn for the following January, Colorado and Minnesota set theirs by board action, and the Social Security wage base these programs ride on changes with the October COLA announcement. Until a state publishes its own 2027 figures, any 2027 number on the internet is a projection, including this page’s.

Sources

• California: State Disability Insurance (SDI): The 1.3% employee rate, $1,765 weekly benefit ceiling, the five-tier benefit table, 52 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• New York: Disability Benefits Law (DBL): The 0.5% employee rate, $170 weekly benefit ceiling, 26 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• New Jersey: Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI): The 0.19% employee rate, $171,100 wage base, $325.09 annual maximum, $1,119 weekly benefit ceiling, 26 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• Rhode Island: Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI): The 1.1% employee rate, $100,000 wage base, $1,100.00 annual maximum, $1,103 weekly benefit ceiling, 30 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• Connecticut: CT Paid Leave (medical leave for your own condition): The 0.5% employee rate, $184,500 wage base, $1,016.40 weekly benefit ceiling, 12 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• Washington: Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML): The 0.8072% employee rate, $184,500 wage base, $1,647 weekly benefit ceiling, 12 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• Oregon: Paid Leave Oregon: The 0.6% employee rate, $184,500 wage base, $1,636.56 weekly benefit ceiling, 12 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• Massachusetts: Paid Family and Medical Leave (TFML): The 0.46% employee rate, $184,500 wage base, $1,230.39 weekly benefit ceiling, 26 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• Colorado: FAMLI: The 0.44% employee rate, $184,500 wage base, $1,448 weekly benefit ceiling, 12 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• Minnesota: Minnesota Paid Leave: The 0.44% employee rate, $184,500 wage base, $1,423 weekly benefit ceiling, 12 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• Delaware: Delaware Paid Leave (ELFLA): The 0.4% employee rate, $184,500 wage base, $900 weekly benefit ceiling, 6 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• Maine: Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML): The 0.5% employee rate, $184,500 wage base, 12 weeks payable and its own tax statement this page prints for 2026
• 26 U.S.C. 105, amounts received under accident and health plans: sections 105(a), (b), (e) and (g), the federal rule behind every row above
• IRS Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income: the line that a plan you paid for yourself does not produce income on your return
• IRS Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business: premiums for a policy that pays lost earnings are not a business deduction
• IRS Publication 502, Medical and Dental Expenses: loss-of-earnings policies are outside the medical expense deduction

Next step: Find the one line on your pay stub that says what the state disability program charges you, then run it through the calculator. If the deduction is small and the program is your employer's, the check you would collect is taxable, and that is the number to plan around.