Why is My Pay Stub Such a Big Deal?
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If you are new to the workforce and have never received a real paycheck before, you will notice that along with your check, there is another piece of paper. This is your pay stub and it is a very important document. “Why is my pay stub so important?” This is a very typical question and you will find that a lot of people never pay any attention to the pay stub and throw it away. This can prove to be a very costly mistake over time.
“I don’t even understand all the numbers on my pay stub, so how important can it really be?” Your pay stub is a complete record of every hour you have worked in the pay period to start with. It is your employer’s interpretation of your time card and the two sets of numbers must match. You pay stub is a printed record of your hours and if you feel that you have not been paid for all of the hours you have worked can be checked against your time card.
If you do not have your pay stub, you have no way to prove or disprove the fact that you are not being paid properly. Your employer will win this argument every time unless he can reprint your pay stub for you. Your stub can also be used as proof of income if you decide to apply for any kind of loan. If these are not reasons enough to hang on to your pay stub, consider the following.
Every week that you earn a paycheck, your employer is going to be taking out a series of deductions. These include your federal income taxes, social security and Medicare taxes and any state or local taxes that your state charges. If you are paying for health insurance or union dues they will be shown on your pay stub, as will uniform costs or any other deductions that are being taken out of your gross pay before your paycheck is written.
Your employer is required to show all of this information on your pay stub by law so that you can see where every dollar of your money is going. This is the only proof of where your money is going, without your pay stubs you have no way to see if you are paying too much or not enough and could end up with a major headache at tax time. This should help answer the question “Why is my pay stub such a big deal?”