My CoursesLesson 1 of 5
Your first check is smaller than rate times hours. Here's exactly where the rest of it went.
All of it is real earning, whether or not it comes with a pay stub.
The honest tradeoff: no stub means nothing was withheld, which means no record of it exists anywhere. That matters later, for renting an apartment or borrowing money. Not a warning, just how it works.
Tap every one that counts. More than one does.
You've got $20. The thing rings up at $19.50. Sales tax makes it $21.06. A rate you didn't set and can't negotiate just changed the number you actually deal with.
A paycheck runs the same idea in reverse. The tax comes out before you ever see the money, instead of getting added on at the register.
Split the missing $50 across those 4 taxes, based on where you think it went. Every dollar has to land somewhere.
Rate times hours, before anything happens to it: 20 hours at $15 is $300. That number is exactly right, on the sign, and it's the $300 you already saw.
What's left after 4 amounts come out. Both names mean the same thing, and you'll see both used.
An estimate the employer sets. Not a rate you can compute yourself.
| Gross pay | 20 hrs x $15 | $300.00 |
| Social Security | 6.2% of $300 | $18.60 |
| Medicare | 1.45% of $300 | $4.35 |
| Federal withholding | estimate | $18.00 |
| State withholding | estimate | $9.05 |
| Hours worked | 20 | |
| Year to date total | grows each check | varies |
| Take-home | $250.00 |
You worked 20 hours at $15 an hour. That's $300. Why isn't $300 the number in your account?
Rate times hours, before anything happens to it, is called what?
Sort these 6 lines from a stub. Some of them took money out of this check. Some are only reporting a number.
Be honest, nobody's grading this.
Your first check came up $50 short. Write the exact question you'd ask to find out why.
You know what the number means before you spend it.