Understanding Your Paycheck

Summary

This presentation provides an overview of understanding your paycheck in the United States. It covers key components such as gross earnings, mandatory taxes, employment benefit deductions, and other adjustments. The session also explains the importance of withholding taxes, employer-provided benefits, and how reimbursements appear on pay statements. By breaking down a sample paycheck, the presentation helps employees interpret their earnings and deductions, ensuring clarity on their take-home pay. Additionally, it addresses common questions about pay cycles and provides guidance on managing finances in the US.

Transcript

Understanding your paycheck in the USA. So what does it look like? What does your paycheck look like?

And I'm joined by one of the best today, my colleague, Joel. He is currently, on our international employee supervisor team. So he works with all of you guys once you arrive into the United States, and he has a lot of amazing advice. I'm sure a lot of you are gonna have questions on this one.

So if you do, while he's speaking, make sure you're posting them in the chat, and we will try to get to them. I'm gonna hand it over the mic over to you, Joel, the imaginary mic. There you go.

Thank you, Erica. Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening to, our audience here. I'm not sure where I I know we have an audience all over the world. Well, I'm excited to talk to you all about, you know, understanding a very important part of your assignment here in the US.

Like Erica said, I'm part of the international employee supervisor team or what we call around here as IES. So, as an IES, my role is really to support the health care professional once they get here in the US and start their journey to work their assignment in whichever facility they're they're going to. And, as part of that support, you know, we get so many questions from the, health care professionals once they get here to the US. And one of the first things that they ask us and or or one of the, main questions that we get early in their assignment is about their paycheck and understanding their paycheck.

Now, it wasn't mentioned by Eric, but I was also an immigrant here, and I used to live in the Philippines for a long time. And I used to work there for a long time as well. So I did get paychecks when I was there. And, when I got here to the US and got my first paycheck, boy, boy, it was like, it was like a contract in itself with so much information in it.

So I do understand, like, why some of the nurses who, you know, got here for the first time, work here for the first time in the US, would have so many questions when they get that first paycheck. They thought it was just gonna be like a one line, check, like, you get from the bank and that tells how much your salary is, but, unfortunately, it isn't. So I'm here to give some clarity about that so that, you know, hopefully, we, you you get some, like I said, some clarity in terms of, like, when you get your first paycheck. Oh, I sort of understand what some of these sections or components are.

So I believe we have, some, slides that we can show. There you go. There you go. Yep.

So like I said, I wanted to talk about some main components that you will see in your paycheck. So, there are probably four. There are several that that might appear, like, from time to time, but these are the four main things that you will see when you've received your paycheck and you receive your sales paycheck. So I'm gonna go through them one by one.

The first thing is about earnings, of course. Right? So one of the, first things that I would tell you all is when you see the earnings at the the top part of your pay statement, it's gonna be gross. K?

So there's a concept of net and gross. So these are gonna this is gonna be your gross pay.

Simply put, you will see your hourly rate, and you will see the number of hours that you work. And simple math, you know, you multiply your hourly rate with your hours work, and you'll get your gross pay.

But I emphasize that it is gross. And, several items in the in your pay statement, will also factor into that gross pay. And the first and biggest thing probably is that second box that you see, the mandatory taxes.

Okay? So, one of the things I I probably start with, like, just the concept of withholding taxes. I'm not sure with, which countries some of our audiences are coming from, but, from the country from, from the Philippines, I wasn't as, this concept of withholding taxes wasn't as, you know, alien to me. It wasn't as new to me.

So withholding taxes, just for everybody's information, is a process wherein the employer, in this case, our CareScout, would take a certain amount of money from your gross pay and then pay those taxes to the government in your name. So I I sometimes, I just simply refer to it as, like, a government's surefire way of collecting the money that they're owed.

So, And this is required.

Right, Joel? Like, it's required, but it yeah. You don't get to bypass that, unfortunately.

It's not optional.

Bypass that. That's why even the section itself is mandatory. K? So it's it's something that's required for every employer.

They have to take a certain amount and pay it to the government, in the employee's name. So there are several taxes that are gonna be in your, paychecks. I'm not gonna explain each one of them, but, because that would take a whole, series in itself discussing each of these taxes. But the primary ones that you will see is about is, on federal taxes, state taxes, local income taxes, Social Security, and Medicare.

There are several resources.

You know, if you, you know, Google, you know, several US government websites, they will explain to you, you know, how, these taxes work. I guess this, simplest to explain is federal and state. Federal is really it goes to the federal government, and then the state part goes to the state government.

But yeah. Joel Yes.

Can I interject really quick?

Maria Christine in the chat, posted a question, and she said mandatory taxes is like SSS, PAG. I don't know these. Do you know these terms?

I do. I do. I do.

Take this one. K.

Yes. Yes. Yes. It is very similar. So SSS is like is Social Security.

Those other two will primarily fall under Medicare. They're not entirely the same, but I would say that's the closest comparison.

So, like I said, these are mandatory.

The government, collects it from the from the people. And when you're employed, they they do it via the employer. So in your paycheck, like I said, there will be a section there that will summarize all of the taxes that we are required to remit to the, to the government. So that's section number two.

Section number three has to do with employment benefits. So, one of the, best things about, health care, Sal, is just the the suite of benefits that we get here in health care cell. So it ranges from, you know, health insurance benefits, you know, vision insurance benefits. There are retirement benefits.

There are so many, list of benefits. Like, literally, our our benefit document is, like, fifty pages long. That that's that's how how we are which is true.

Right? Wonderful reading material.

Wonderful reading material. So our suite of benefits is big.

Now these benefits, of course, like, these these cost money. Right? And, but the benefit that that health care cell gives is that they shoulder a big portion of that cost. So whether it's health insurance, whether it's, dental insurance, a a a big portion of that cost is soldered by HealthCare Cell.

Now there is a portion that we can just call, like, the share of the employee that will be paid by the employee, and that will be the part that's included in this third box. So any, any benefit that we that, you avail as an employee, you will have a share to that. It's a very small share compared to the actual cost of the benefit. That's why it's such, you know, like I said, it's such an amazing thing that we get here as an employee of health care.

So that like I said, that third box summarizes all of those, employment benefit deductions.

Now the last box will be, of course, other adjustments. Throughout your assignment, we will encounter situations wherein you will have reimbursements, you know, things that you pay for that are required for you to practice here in the US. My best example is, like, a certification that you need to practice, like, in in your unit. So, these certifications are, of course, required, and most of the time, these certifications are paid or there's a fee associated with it.

So there will be situations wherein, you know, the nurses would pay for the fee, and then we will reimburse the the nurse for that. So that fourth box that you see about other adjustments would would include that. There are other things, that will come up, but it's not as common as the first three. Those first three that you see, you will always see in your paychecks.

The next slide actually shows a sample paycheck.

Now the disclaimer that you all see zeros here. You are not gonna see this in your actual paycheck. We will actually pay you, so there's gonna be an actual amount there. But just for the purposes of illustrate illustrating the different sections that I just talked about, this is what it's gonna look like when you first see your statement.

So, remember the four boxes. Right? Earnings, taxes, employment benefit deductions, and then other adjustments. Right?

Those are the four. So the first thing, like I said, is about your earnings. You'll see that on the top my top left or, yeah, so so that's gonna that's gonna talk about your gross pay, like I said.

It's very simple. It's probably the smallest box because it's pretty straightforward. It's gonna be your hourly rate and your hours' work. So pretty exciting.

That it's the smallest box. Why can't it be the biggest box?

It's the smallest box, but it it is it has the biggest number. Yes. The number is what's important, not the size of the box.

Right. Right.

Right.

But, that's gonna be the first section. The second section will, be a big section about deductions. And reason the only reason it's big, it's not because of the amount. It's just because of the number of items.

So this is like this is that's why we're doing this, this, series for you all because once you see all those items when you get your actual paycheck, I bet you, you're gonna have some questions because they're just. And, like I said, the most common ones are the federal taxes, you know, the state taxes. You'll see their Social Security, Medicare. And then on the other boxes, the one that says other, you will see, like, DN, m e MED, and VIS.

You can probably figure that out. DN is dental insurance, MED is medical insurance, and VIS is vision insurance. So those are, like, like I mentioned, those are the your share as an employee towards the cost of your medical, dental, and vision insurance. So, it's gonna be deducted in your paycheck as well.

And all of those are gonna be summarized to arrive at your net pay, which you will see right there at the bottom in in in, it's gonna be in bold letters. This is gonna be, it's common that we call here in the US a take home pay because literally, that's what it is. That's the amount of money that you take home. Okay?

So that's gonna be your net pay. Towards on the right are is gonna be, if you remember the fourth box that we talked about, the other adjustments, that's gonna be on the box here that's on its own on my right.

Like I said, this, this is, this part is sort of, like, situational. It doesn't come up, often. But if it does come up, it's gonna be on this section. So, hopefully, that is helpful. Like I said, you you're never gonna see zeros in your paycheck. There's not an actual amount there, but I hope it's helpful just to visualize, you know, the sections or the components that you'll see in the paycheck.

At first, it's gonna be a little bit, you know, complicated. It looks complicated.

It it it does. But, once you get the hang of it, it's pretty consistent. And, like I said in the beginning, your your IES, so myself, for example, is gonna be there to answer any questions that the health care professional is gonna have throughout their assignment. You know? There's gonna be, you know, a lot of, unique things, like I said, that may come up in their paychecks, and your IES will always be there to, answer your questions. So, hopefully, this is helpful. And, this if we have any questions, you know, just, fire it away.

Joel, we got one in the chat here from Alistar, which is a great question.

Yes.

So we get paid every week, the fifteenth, or per month, question mark.

Great question. Of course, we do wanna know when that money's coming in. Right? So your pay cycle, that that's how we call it here, in the US, will depend on the facility that you're working in. So, we want to mimic as much as possible how your facility's, employees are getting paid. So if that facility pays every week, you're gonna be paid every week. If that facility pays every two weeks or how we call it here, biweekly, then you're gonna be paid biweekly.

The last time I researched and I, you know, I I talked to payroll about this, we're only doing weekly and biweekly for all our clients right now. So which is great for, you know, just in terms of budgeting. You know, a lot of, what we do in the US, we do it weekly. Like, I myself, they do groceries every week. So it's good to have that, you know, that paycheck every week so you can budget well. So that's how it works.