As far as I know this is the more popular format in places like the US. But don’t you guys get paid montly as well? If so, why do you say you make X/year and not Y/month? Is it something practical or just cultural? I am not saying it’s bad or anything, I am just interested.
What’s the point of using the salary/year format instead of salary/month? Why do certain places prefer it?
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Depends where you live, but most places I’ve lived my cheques were either weekly or biweekly.
A not insignificant number of US states mandate that employees be paid either weekly or bi-weekly. It’s easy to convert an annual salary to a weekly or bi-weekly salary, less so to convert monthly.
I get paid monthly but honestly couldn’t tell you my monthly pay because of all the deductions and such. But I know exactly my annual salary. Similarly, if I hear what someone makes in a month I have to x12 to get a number that is meaningful to me for comparison purposes.
The point is to have one salary comparable to another.
Most job offers will specify a yearly salary, then divide that yearly salary based on the number of pay periods (monthly, weekly, bi weekly (every two weeks), twice per month (1st and 15th for example). Stating your salary as a yearly figure is probably the most common ground for those who are not paid hourly.
If anybody gave me a salary figure that was not yearly, I would find it quite odd.
Annual looks bigger than showing a monthly or bi-weekly amount. Its just fake advertising.
I have gotten paid weekly, every other week, monthly and twice per month. Annual salary keeps them all comparable. Also, with taxes, benefits, and tax withholding, you have to wait for the paycheck to see what you really get to spend.
I’ve no idea how much I make monthly lol. I put a bunch of my money in a private pension, pay a bunch of other stuff out of it etc
I don’t know….why are houses or cars advertised by price rather than monthly payments?
For large dollar amounts it makes sense to just show the total and let someone do the math themselves.
Salaries usually change from year to year. They don’t change month to month. So there’s really no point in distinguishing it by month as it is the same all year long. Also, we are taxed on our yearly salary, not monthly.
American here. I usually get paid twice a month or every other week, depends on the company. However, if we are salaried employees, you negotiate the salary at the year metric, not the month. You don’t say I want to make $2000/month, you say I’m looking for $100K/year or whatever. I genuinely don’t know what I make a month. Also, after August, my actual paycheck is higher because I’ve hit my social security tax ceiling for the year, so that is no longer withdrawn. It can also change monthly if you opt to increase/decrease your 401(k) contribution. $XXX/year is a more obvious metric.
Places that use salary per year are just trying to give the big picture and it sounds fancier or just more serious. It helps for comparing jobs, too. For stuff like taxes, bonuses, raises, all that jazz, annual salary just keeps things tidy. That said, monthly salary feels more real. That’s what hits your bank account. That’s rent money.
I want to know what I get yearly as it’s easier to compare offers. Tax return is done yearly as well so it kinda makes sense right?
It’s just the format that people use and know. If you tell somebody that their salary will be x dollars per month or $x per week they will typically have to mentally calculate how much that is per year so that they understand where it fits in the scheme of things.
On the flip side, wage earners or accustomed to hearing wages in dollars per hour. If they’re told some other amount per time period then they will be stuck mentally converting it back to dollars per hour.
It’s really just a matter of convention.
My annual salary is what i need to do my taxes.
My bi-weekly paychecks are how my household budget works. Half the bills on the 1st, the other half on the 15th.
If people are paid once per month, or twice per month, or once every two weeks, or every week, all of those can be accounted for with an annual salary, which is 12 monthly paychecks, 24 twice per month paychecks, 26 every other week paychecks, and 52 weekly paychecks.
Not so with a one figure monthly salary, which may not be the same every month (if people are paid based on days/hours worked as months aren’t uniform).
It’s also a bigger number, and who doesn’t want to think of their salary in a bigger number…
Idk never thought about it is probably why
Because the bigger number looks better. For people who are not thorough and not good with number won’t take the extra effort to see if that number is sustainable. Definitely not considering taxes being taken out etc.
I have been paid monthly, twice Monthly, every other week, and weekly. (And, upon occasion, weakly.)
The best way to compare a salary is if all salaries are stated in the same format. Hence, in the US, it is annual salary.
If in other places, salary is expressed in other periods, that is not a problem, as long as the period is stated, but everything needs to be comverted to the same base for comparison.
(Honestly? I really kind of liked being paid monthly, although getting onto the schedule was hard. The nice thing about it is that I knew when pay hit in comparison to all of my bills, and I split the check into two accounts, so all of my regular bills came out of one account which I knew not to touch. That account just got direct deposited into and auto paid out of and I never worried about it.)
Why not salary per second?
Almost everyone I know gets paid every other week.
Just tell people your per diem.
Rent and bills are usually paid monthly, so it makes sense to measure your salary the same way to calculate your final income.
Example: “I make $1000 per month and pay $500 in utility bills so I have $500 each month to spend freely.”
We get paid every 2 weeks, so 26 times a year.
Some people get paid weekly, some every 2 weeks, some twice a month, some monthly.
You need to figure annual pay for your taxes, so easy to know this number. Especially this time of year.
Getting paid monthly is very rare in the US. It’s usually weekly or biweekly. Biweekly is most common.
It’s the exact same thing. Do it by day if you want to.
Over time, units of measuring things become uniform for broad clarity.
Yearly is how they are advertised when we apply for jobs, so it is partly that.
Sometimes, companies offer forms of compensation that aren’t paid out monthly.
For instance, I get a bonus check every March. My stock options vest quarterly. These are both forms of income that are difficult to express in a monthly format
I also divert a considerable chunk of my salary into pre-tax accounts like a 401k and Health Savings Account. The amount that gets deposited into my checking account each month is considerably lower than the total amount of money that I get to keep for myself.
My institution shares with me my salary per hour, which is basically a set amount for a set week, but what I really care about is how much I make per year. It’s the metric with which I can understand how much my salary has gone up or down. From there I do convert into months, but having spent a life thinking of people’s pay on a yearly basis, it’s just sort of the framework in comparison a lot of us have.
It’s probably an age thing.
We generally get paid bimonthly but we aren’t horrible at math so we can easily convert between different intervals.