Config-driven calculator

Tech Severance & Layoff Runway Explorer

Estimate how long severance, savings, and unemployment can cover your burn rate after a layoff.

Designed for people asking how long severance will last, how much runway they really have after a layoff, and how aggressively they need to cut burn during a search.

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How It Works

How this calculator helps answer the decision.

Designed for people asking how long severance will last, how much runway they really have after a layoff, and how aggressively they need to cut burn during a search.

What you will enter

Regional benefits baseline: Select the market profile that should drive currency, unemployment assumptions, and default severance withholding.
Prior Annual Base Salary: Annual base salary before bonus or equity, used to estimate weekly severance value and unemployment replacement.
Severance Payout Weeks: Total severance weeks committed in the package, excluding any separate bonus payout.
Liquid Savings: Cash and near-cash reserves you can use without forcing a long-term investment sale.

What you will get back

Gross severance payout: Estimated cash value of the severance package before withholding.
Net severance payout: Gross severance after the market baseline withholding assumption is applied.
Effective unemployment cap: The monthly unemployment ceiling used in the runway model after applying any override.
Monthly unemployment benefit: Modeled monthly unemployment support after replacement-rate and cap constraints.

What this model emphasizes

Convert salary and severance weeks into a post-layoff cash bridge estimate
Model unemployment support with regional benefit caps or a manual override
Measure cash-only runway and total runway months against monthly burn

Who this is for

Professionals who have already been laid off and need a realistic runway estimate.
Workers reviewing a severance package and deciding how much burn reduction is needed.
Anyone trying to separate emotional layoff news from hard cash-flow math.

Common ways people use it

Estimate how many months your current cash stack can fund the search.
Compare cash-only runway with runway that includes unemployment support.
Stress-test whether a lower burn rate materially extends your timeline.

Common questions

Does the calculator include unemployment benefits automatically?

Yes. It applies a regional replacement-rate and cap assumption, then lets you override the cap if your state or province has a different maximum.

Why does the severance result show a net value instead of just gross payout?

Because withholding and taxes affect how much severance is actually available to fund monthly burn. The net figure is the more useful runway number.

What should I count in monthly operational overhead?

Include housing, insurance, debt payments, healthcare, and core living costs that still need to be paid during the job search. This works best when the burn number is conservative and honest.