First pay stub
You agreed $12 an hour and worked about 20 hours. You expected $240. The pay stub says $202, and you do not recognize two of the lines on it.
What do you do?
Life Skills · Prepare · Grades 9 to 12
Chapter 1: Money
The number you agreed is not the number that arrives.
The number you agreed is not the number that arrives.
Educational examples only, with invented figures. This is not financial, legal or tax advice — real decisions need a qualified person and your own numbers.
A situation to decide. There is often more than one good answer: pick one and see what happens.
First pay stub
What do you do?
Gross pay is what you earned. Net pay is what reaches your account. The gap is deductions, and it is normal — but it is worth knowing what is in it.
Net pay is what actually arrives after everything is taken off.
Income tax, a national insurance or social security contribution, and sometimes a pension payment. The names and rates differ by country; the shape is the same everywhere.
The most common pay stub error is not tax. It is hours. Count them against what you worked, because nobody else will.
If a pay stub does not make sense, asking payroll is an ordinary thing to do and not a complaint. Errors are usually clerical and usually fixed.
These ones do have right answers.
Match each pay stub line to what it means.
Match the term to its meaning.
Tap a card on the left to start.
Question 1 of 1
Which number should you use when working out what you can afford each month?
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
Why: The take-home rate is the number to use when deciding whether a shift is worth it.
The gross-to-net gap surprises almost every first-time earner, and the surprise is worse if the first pay stub is the first time anybody mentions it. Ten minutes in advance prevents it.
Watch for budgeting against the hourly rate times the hours. It is the natural sum to do and it is wrong by the deductions, which at low incomes is still material.
If you have an old pay stub you are comfortable showing, a real one with the figures covered teaches this faster than any example.