I think this is mostly a US thing. Why use yearly salary? You’re not paid once a year, are you? Most likely once a month. Referencing monthly salary makes much more sense.
“I’m making 50k”. Great, now I have to guess - dollars? Monthly? Yearly? If yearly then what’s the monthly paycheck? Net? Gross?
Lol who would hear “I’m making 50k” and think it’s anything other than per year unless they just stepped out of a private jet…
I feel like this might be confusing only if you are under the age of 14 and have no idea how money or the world works…
You don’t make 50k per week???
Lol. Agreed. It’s not confusing.
People whose currency IS dealt in that scale.
For example, if you want to restrict it to English speakers, then anyone from Hong Kong would be flaunting a quite decent, but not millionaire, salary.
Depends on the currency.
Did you just assume my ¥der?
That was funnier than it should have been
The exchange rate is pretty good right now.
Not in basically all of the English speaking world. USD, CAD, AUS, Pounds, Euros, NZD. 50k a month or week or whatever you for some reason think it might be other than a year would be an insane amount of money to make.
I bet you’re the kind of person that hates it when you ask the time and people respond by rounding it to the nearest 10 minutes…
Not really. It’s usually obvious from context. Unless you’re trying to be an intentionally obtuse pedant?
Thanks, captain Obvious
I know people who make 50k per month and don’t have jets. I make 30k p/m but I’ll get there one day. It’s crazy how when I was broke making $20/hour in a cafe that I thought everyone or most people are broke but now I’m making modest money it’s crazy how many other entrepreneurs are in my circle now. Just wow.
Lol this piss take xD
You have such a wild post history
I mean, you just basically answered your own question. People get paid hourly, weekly, every 2 weeks, monthly, and some even per sale (ie. Realtors) so the only way to have a constant measurement is yearly.
Why not monthly? It seems the smallest unit to encompass them all, and is fairly standard.
Monthly makes sense also since most bills are monthly.
Until you have people who get a yearly bonus. Or 13 or 14 monthly salaries a year, which is quite common in Germany (basically a bonus, but the employee is entitled to it).
Yes but a lot of work is seasonal and/or sporadic. Annual pay smoothes it out.
I’d imagine that for some jobs (seasonal etc) there is too much variation in a month-to-month basis
At every job I’ve ever had, I get paid every two weeks. So the amount I make per month varies.
Those months where three paychecks fall in them are pretty sweet.
Most bills are monthly, most paychecks schedules are bi-weekly. To me this is the same issue as hot dogs and buns being sold in different quantities. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!?!?!?!?!
Biweekly isn’t a thing in many places in Europe, I think.
But most pays are fortnightly
Not here (the Netherlands), everything is monthly, both pay and bills.
Same in Hungary. Not a single person I know gets their salary weekly or biweekly. It’s absolutely not a thing.
Also, your bills are monthly. You mortgage is monthly. Your credit card bill is monthly. Preschool is paid monthly. Everything is monthly.
I get paid 4 weekly so get 13 pays a year.
Because that’s the standard and that is the wage I negotiated and my bi-weekly checks are that number/26. I didn’t negotiate a per-payperiod rate.
It’s what my taxation is based on.
It’s what all my credit applications ask for.
Also, what you make and what you take home are really quite variable based on circumstance between 2 people making the same base wage. Retirement contributions, health care premiums, taxes, and other deductions vary from person to person.
For salaried employees it’s the standard metric by which wages are measured. You don’t need to guess anything. That’s the standard.
For hourly employees, that would be your hourly rate. Since hours can be variable and overtime is a thing your yearly rate would be variable too.
Seriously there’s nothing to guess.
Because that’s the standard
Where?
It’s not standard for me. We only talk about monthly numbers with my colleagues and friends.
For the US, but going by this thread it’s not limited to here.
Also, for what it’s worth, I would think if op was in a place that used monthly as the standard they wouldn’t have posted this complaint. If that’s not the case I’m confused by the point of this post?
Bi-weekly is ambiguous, use fortnightly.
Very few people are paid twice a week.
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Can’t speak for the US, but here in Germany there often aren’t 12 monthly salaries to a year. Many people get a Christmas bonus and/or a summer bonus, but just as many don’t. Personally, I get paid about 13 1/4 monthly salaries a year, so telling you my yearly salary would be more accurate than the monthly amount.
Same in Italy
It’s pretty standard in Europe too. It’s what you see when filling your taxes, but very often people have bonuses, over-time, 13rd month and other things making monthly pay not relevant
The Thirturd month is my favorite month of the year
Stupid Smarch weather
What happened to one-teen?!
wait till you hear that in Italy we have 14
but only if you are lucky and it’s heavily taxed.
Personally, I don’t get paid every month, I get paid every two weeks, which means that some months I get paid twice and some I get paid thrice. Stating an annual value corrects for weird shit like this, and it’s going to be consistent since it’s probably how it is being tracked in the employer’s accounting.
Because your yearly income dictates your tax bracket.
This isn’t how tax brackets work. Say we have 5%, 10%, and 15% in a system similar to the US with completely made up numbers. Say you make $99k, your first $33k will be taxed at 5% ($1650), your second $33k at 10%($3300), and your last $33k taxed at 15%($4950) totalling $9900. 9900/99000= a 10% effective tax rate. The real system is more complicated, but this is what it boils down to.
Nothing that I wrote conflicts with anything you said.
Being in Tax Bracket C doesn’t in any way imply you arent in Tax Bracket A.
The point is, Tax Brackets, and Taxes in general, are based on yearly income, so thats what people largely measure by once you are above a certain pay grade.
You get taxed by the year, so many people quote their income by the year, because its a quick and simple indicator of wealth/status.
You wrote “it determines your tax bracket” inferring you’d be in a single bracket and this is an extremely common misconception with how our tax system works. Furthermore, your income is only part of the equation since your tax rate is also affected by deductions, exemptions, and credits making two people making the exact same income can be taxed at different rates.
For future reference. Anytime people are talking about “their tax bracket” in a progressive tax system, they are talking about the top level bracket.
It’s typically redundant to, mid conversation, list all the tax brackets that exist under the one you’re talking about.
The only people I’ve ever heard talking about “their tax bracket” are the types who refuse to take an extra hours at work because “it’ll put me in a higher tax bracket and I’ll actually earn less money than if I hadn’t worked it at all” even though that’s mathematically impossible.
Someone earning $44,726 will put them a whole dollar into the 22% tax bracket meaning they pay $0.22 more in taxes than if they’d stayed within the 12% bracket of $11,001-$44,725. Claiming “I’m in the 22% bracket” is completely meaningless, as evidenced with the above example, and ignores the fact that this person is much more likely to have an effective tax rate of around 12% or less. If you’re only paying 12% of your income in taxes, why in the world would you say you’re “in the 22% bracket?”
Naw dude… I know how tax brackets work.
Most folks who know how taxes work refer to their “tax bracket” inclusively with respect to both the point they are at as well as inclusive with all below
Because its impossible to be at the third tax bracket without logically also being in the first and second implicitly, it is redundant to include that.
Sorry mate but you are just coming across as pedantic here, or uninformed. Its quite normal to, colloquially, refer to the topmost bracket you are encroached into as “your tax bracket” singular, with everyone in the room understanding that is inclusive with all those below it.
I wont deny that there are a lot of people that think that going up a tax bracket means all their income is taxed at the new rate, which is always hilarious that people still think that in 2023.
But no, I assure you, I know how progressive tax brackets work lol.
In future we all expect you to list the average tax rate you are in and which two tax brackets that it lies between by calculating all the taxes paid and dividing by your gross wages then looking up the tax code to verify it has not changed. Please provide sources every time on your tax code.
You’re just repeating the same thing you said in the last comment and ignoring everything I wrote. Nowhere did I say that you need to list every bracket. I said people don’t talk about “their tax bracket” because that isn’t a thing and that isn’t their tax bracket. It’s just a percentage that some potentially miniscule amount of tax that may apply to a further potentially tiny fraction of income and in no way represents how much they’re paying in taxes.
I can’t tell if you’re being serious - and so the world’s biggest pedant, or if you’re just the kind of person who can never admit they were wrong, even about something inconsequential, and aren’t willing to admit you misread the top comment lol
I think you might be the only one that inferred that.
Many people in the US are paid every two weeks, which means some months you’re paid more than others.
Yearly has become standard as is hourly rate, because one is useful for taxes and the other is often directly negotiated.
I work OT as well, and it’s feast or famine. I’ve had 30% of my yearly salary come from a little over two months where I worked 12/7s. Hourly rate doesn’t really get that across.
I’ve been paid every week, every two weeks, and twice a month (first and 15th or 15th and last).
AnD wHaTs ThE dEaL wItH aIrLiNe FoOd? Am I rIgHt?
As others have mentioned, a few possibilities (I’m in the US, not sure how specific this is):
- Payment isn’t always monthly, it is often every two weeks. So sometimes you get two paychecks in a month, sometimes you get three.
- Compensation isn’t just salary, even if you’re salaried. Bonuses, stock grants, etc. might be done yearly/every 6 mo./every quarter.
- Expenses aren’t always monthly. If you own a place, you probably pay property tax which isn’t due every month AFAIK. If you budget for vacations, holiday travel, etc., these are costs that vary wildly month to month, but have some stability on a yearly basis.
- ETA: taxes are based on annual income, too.
The tax point is probably the biggest one. People just want to know what tax bracket you fall into. And it corrects for seasonal variations.
Expenses aren’t always monthly
Mortgages neither. Mine is accelerated bi-weekly, meaning I pay essentially 13 months a year… It shaves a wooping 3 and a half years on my 25 years!
“I’m making 50k”. Great, now I have to guess - dollars? Monthly? Yearly? If yearly then what’s the monthly paycheck? Net? Gross?
Guess? It’s called math. You want to know monthly? Divide by 12. You’re mad that you have to do math? It’s a standardized number.
For yearly to hourly divide by 2 and lop off 3 zeros. $35/hour = $70,000/year (approximately)
I agree. And the reason why that math mostly works out is because there are roughly 2000 working hours a year. So you’re just dividing salary by 2000.
I think it’s probably one of those things that is stupid until you reach a point of financial success or fall into groups that consider your financial wealth important. Why it’s a thing is probably because we pay our taxes once a year and that’s when it’s laid bare and you see how much you made. So after 10 or 20 years you kinda know what 50k a year is and if someone is talking about making that much you can understand the lack of money they have. If you friend tells you that, don’t ask them out to expensive things unless you’re going to pay the bill.
Is 50k per year below average in the US? Is it hard to survive on that amount?
It depends significantly on location and living situation, but 50k ranges from moderately comfortable all the way to poverty line.
To add to the other poster, in the USA we have calculators for these things.
There is lots of info available, but a short answer is:
The real median earnings of all workers aged 15 and over with earnings decreased 1.2 percent between 2019 and 2020 from $42,065 to $41,535
Comparing that to where I live.
The median is about $37k per year.
On the other hand. I make around $13k, single household, studio flat close to the city center and I make do just ok. Wouldn’t hurt to earn a bit more. But on the other hand I work a bit less than 50%. It’s hard to find work though and inflation is making living harder.
If you have a family it’s poverty wage.
I don’t get paid once a month. I get paid every 2 weeks.
At a prior job, I got paid every week.
Yearly is a good baseline, and also helpful for taxes (which Americans have to do by hand because of tax preparers lobbying against the government doing it for us).
Where do they do it otherwise? In Australia it’s also yearly.
People might also get bonus so in some sense you get paid once a year.
In Czechia, it’s definitely normal to say salary per month.
Same in Poland, it’s definitely more common to discuss monthly salaries. I had to adjust when moved to Germany, as almost everyone uses yearly base. Though I would say it makes sense considering yearly bonuses etc.
South Africa do it monthly
