Interactive tool

WARN Notice & Severance Estimator

See what the WARN Act's 60-day notice period is worth in pay, and a typical severance range for your tenure — so you can sanity-check an offer after a layoff.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the WARN Act guarantees 60 days’ advance notice — not severance — before a qualifying mass layoff. PlainLayoffs has compiled more than 4,800 WARN notices covering more than 930,000 affected workers as of March 2026; this estimator translates that 60-day window into pay using your own salary. See our methodology for sourcing.

Your situation

How these numbers are estimated

The WARN Act doesn’t require severance — it requires 60 calendar days’ advance notice. During that window you either keep working at full pay or, if the employer ends your role sooner without proper notice, you may be owed back pay and benefits for the days of notice you didn’t get (up to 60). This tool values that window as roughly 60 ÷ 365 of your annual salary (about 2 months).

Severance itself is set by company policy or contract, not by the WARN Act. A common market convention is one to two weeks of pay per year of service, often with a floor of a few weeks; this tool shows that range for context only. Your actual entitlement depends on your employer’s policy, any signed agreement, and your state’s law. This is an educational estimate, not legal or financial advice.