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...
Not really. It's usually obvious from context. Unless you're trying to be an intentionally obtuse pedant?
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...
OK, how many people are getting jobs paid in foreign currency?
We're on the Internet, how should anyone know what's "your" currency?
Because you're fucking applying to jobs that exist within some defined country.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?!?!?!?!?!
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’m making 50k”. Great, now I have to guess - dollars? Monthly? Yearly? If yearly then what’s the monthly paycheck? Net? Gross?
Unless you just stepped of your alien spaceship and have never interacted with societal conventions before, these are all fairly consistent. If you're in a country, you're almost certainly getting paid in the local currency. Annual pay is typically listed for various reasons though tradition is a big one, your pay period will also be specified whether monthly, weekly, two weeks, or whatever, and it's listed before taxes since the business has no clue what your personal income tax looks like.
And on the contrary, what makes sense about monthly that doesn't about yearly? I don't get paid monthly, and years to 2 week pay periods is far easier than months to 2 week pay periods.
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.
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.
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
wait till you hear that in Italy we have 14
but only if you are lucky and it's heavily taxed.
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.
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.
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.
"I'm making 50k". Great, now I have to guess - dollars? Monthly? Yearly? If yearly then what's the monthly paycheck? Net? Gross?
I mean surely it's obvious in that example, no?
dollars
If that's the native currency wherever you are, then of course dollars
Monthly? Yearly?
$50k/month about be $600k/year. Pretty sure you'd be able to tell if the person you're talking to made half a million dollars a year vs just above the poverty line (in the US at least) just from context, but when in doubt - it's probably safe to assume that the person you're talking to isnt in the top 1% of earners
If yearly then what's the monthly paycheck?
Yearly divided by 12? If you're in a hurry and want a rough estimate just chop a number off the right and that'll get you to within ~10% of the correct value
Net? Gross?
I've literally never heard anyone give their salary as gross outside the context of financial planning, and even then they'll always specify "after taxes" or something similar.
Other comments go into plenty of detail about why they se various conventions are what they are (yearly vs monthly, net vs gross, etc(
I've literally never heard anyone give their salary as gross outside the context of financial planning, and even then they'll always specify "after taxes" or something similar.
You mean net here, not gross. Otherwise, agree.
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
In Québec, the default frequency for being paid is every two weeks. Big salaries are mostly stated as yearly salary, while more menial labour is often by the hour.
I don't have an explanation, it's just what it is. But I heard over that being paid every two weeks was because people were so bad with money that they would starve every month, so they started paying us every 2 weeks instead. Go figure.
I can't even compare wages with my partner if we have to go by monthly rate.
I get paid per month, but in May I get an 8% bonus, so my monthly payment is not the same throughout the year. Then my partner gets paid every 4 weeks, and receives bonuses based on company performance in those 4 weeks. So every payment is different.
Per annum is the only way we can compare our salaries. And that's in the same country. Now try international, and it'll really difficult otherwise soon.
I live in the Netherlands.
large part of Europe also.
also yearly before tax, because employers do not need to know about other incomes and thereof how much money you pay in taxes. you can tell, but they don't need to know.
when they hire you, they don't know about your taxes, anyway. they put the ad, and if you're hired and have other incomes, you'll pay more taxes out of it.
yearly because taxes are paid yearly.
some people are paid weekly, some monthly.
so yearly becomes the comparison to help taxes and compare across the market which might pay at different frequency.
it helps account for your budget and their budget.
if you don't care about budgeting or calculate taxes, you make the math.
