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
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We’re on the Internet, how should anyone know what’s “your” currency?
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Chill, don’t be upset… we’re all civil here. I’m talking about a situation where someone shares their salary e.g. here on Lemmy. Then you’d have no clue what’s their country and what’s the currency they mean. There are plenty of other examples where currency is not obvious if you don’t state it clearly, or have enough context to know it from that.
In that context, the person would state the currency since they know that others may not know. If no currency is stated then they just mean USD because only US people think they’re the center of the world.
Foreign to whom?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
What happened to one-teen?!
Stupid Smarch weather
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.
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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.
AnD wHaTs ThE dEaL wItH aIrLiNe FoOd? Am I rIgHt?
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’ve been paid every week, every two weeks, and twice a month (first and 15th or 15th and last).
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.
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 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.
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
“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.
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
