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?

  • Lettuce eat lettuce
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    1 year ago

    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…

    • DrQuint@lemm.ee
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      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.

    • austin@aussie.zone
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      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.

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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Cyclohexane
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • bob_lemon@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        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).

      • locuester@lemmy.zip
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        Yes but a lot of work is seasonal and/or sporadic. Annual pay smoothes it out.

      • callouscomic@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        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?!?!?!?!?!

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        1 year ago

        At every job I’ve ever had, I get paid every two weeks. So the amount I make per month varies.

      • barrage4u@lemmy.world
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        I’d imagine that for some jobs (seasonal etc) there is too much variation in a month-to-month basis

          • TheGreenGolem@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            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.

  • 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.

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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works
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    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

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    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.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      Agree. What a weird thing for op to be upset about. I have never once in my many years on this planet had someone confuse an annual salary for a monthly one.

      Annual pay is the standard if you work full time. It’s definitely not a rich person thing, it’s for taxes, total takehome, budgeting, you name it. In fact thinking about it, I think it’d be more work for me to figure out my budget if it was monthly.

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    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.

    • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

    • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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      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.

      • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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        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.

        • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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          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.

          • joshhsoj1902@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            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.

            • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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              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?”

              • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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                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.

                • Zippy@lemmy.world
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                  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.

                • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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                  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.

          • bitsplease
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            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

  • qjkxbmwvz@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    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.
    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      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.

    • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works
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      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!

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    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.

    • Tuss@lemmy.world
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      Is 50k per year below average in the US? Is it hard to survive on that amount?

      • Atropos@lemmy.world
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        It depends significantly on location and living situation, but 50k ranges from moderately comfortable all the way to poverty line.

        • Tuss@lemmy.world
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          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.

  • jetsetdorito@lemm.ee
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    maybe tax related since taxes are based on annual income. if you are not hourly/salaried and you are self employed/freelance/contract your income will vary from month to month. annually seems like it can be more accurate across all those groups

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    “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.

      • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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        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.