what is included in a paycheck stub

retirement plan contributions:

Plans such as 401(K) or 403(b) retirement savings plans.

Local tax

although rare, a local tax is sometimes applied to employees of certain cities, counties or school districts. for example, if you live in new jersey, but work in new York city, you will required to pay not only new jersey state tax, but also new York city tax on your earnings

state tax

depending on your state of residence, you may or may not be required to pay a state tax. Most states however, do participate, so this amount is deducted from your paycheck(the same way as federal tax) to cover the amount of tax that you may owe to the state when your tax return is filed.

important notices

employers often use a portion of the paycheck stub to communicate important pieces of information to their employees such as wage increases or notifications about tax filings

childcare assistance

if offered by your employer, this amount may appear on each paycheck as pre-tax benefit.

Net pay

includes the amount of income that you actually take home after all withholdings have been applied. it is the amount of money that you take straight to the bank!

Gross pay

includes the total amount of income that you earned during a particular pay period. A pay period is determined by your employer, but is typically bi-weekly or monthly. this figure does not factor in tax withholdings.

leave time

including vacation hours or sick hours. Most employers will detail how many hours have been used to date, and how many hours are remaining for the calendar year.

medicare

like social security withholdings, medicare withholdings are also mandatory. every employee pays 1.45% of their paycheck toward medicare, and every employer contributes an additional 1.45% on behalf of the employee. upon eligibility for social security, an employee is entitled to coverage for a majority of their medical expenses.

insurance deductions

monthly payments for suck types of insurance as health, and life insurance.

social security

the federal government requires every employee to have a certain percentage of their paycheck withheld for social security purposes. this entitles you to receive a monthly social security payment upon retirement. for wages paid in 2013, employees pay 6.2 percent in oasdi taxes. thus, an individual with wages equal to or larger than $113,700 would contribute $7,049.40 to the oasdi program in 2013, as would his or her employer.

year to date

the year to date fields on your paycheck stub show how much you have paid toward a particular withholding at any point in the calendar year. this can be useful when

federal tax amount

when you were first hired by your employer, you were required to fill out a w-4 form. this form covers any tax that you may owe to the federal government come tax time. it is deducted incrementally from each paycheck, and can vary depending on the number of exemptions you chose to claim.