It's About Your Paycheck (Episode 1)

[00:00:00] Brian: Welcome folks, to our new show. It's about your paycheck. What up, Walt? How you doing tonight, sir?

[00:00:08] Walt: I'm good, man. I'm excited for this. I'm looking forward to it. This is really gonna be helpful to a lot of people out there who are employees and whoever gets paid. I think this is really gonna be something that

[00:00:20] Brian: really empowers them.

[00:00:23] Brian: There you go. I'm glad you landed on that word, empowered. Tell me what, what really got you excited about doing this show? We already do a payroll show for those of you who are not familiar with us. And unless you're a payroll pro, you probably not. And not even all of them, but anywho, we do a payroll show now strictly for payroll folks.

[00:00:47] Brian: And then just along that journey, we flipped the script and was like, man, so I got some inspiration of why I really want to do this. What about you? What's really motivating you to do this?

[00:00:57] Walt: Some of the things, I'll give a, recent example [00:01:00] that I saw. I was on msn.com and there was a young lady who posted about her paycheck and then what her next meal was gonna be.

[00:01:09] Walt: And she had a tortilla and I think some like jelly or something like that, like some squeezed jelly. So yeah, you told me about that. And she wrapped it up and she was like, how can I live off of this? And so it's seeing things like that. And then people that I'm familiar with, not.

[00:01:25] Walt: Being educated about their pay and like really not knowing how it works for them. So that kind of really hit me a little bit, right? And you have some interesting stories yourself Brian? What are

[00:01:38] Brian: some of your inspirations? For sure. One of the things that we just talked about on the show, on our payroll show, we came across is 60% of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck, right?

[00:01:48] Brian: 60%. Of America's 250 million Americans that get W 2s every year, probably another 150, the 1099s, right? [00:02:00] And, six, more than half of us are living paycheck to paycheck. So that was and I think I've been there all my life. That's big, man. And I've always wanted to change that for myself and my family and whatnot.

[00:02:16] Walt: But, let's talk about some of the personal, this personal stuff, right? Cause this is why we did it, it's the, it's for the personal aspects of it, right? I know you told me some stories about family. That's Hey

[00:02:28] Brian: Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. Yes. I was in New York recently beginning of the summer.

[00:02:36] Brian: And shout out to my man E, a fan of the show, mass support on the payroll show, but he don't he's just what paycheck, yo paycheck, so he brought it up and was like, yo, I have a question about my paycheck, and I was like, thinking, he's such a comedian I brushed, he's no, for real, and I was like yeah no doubt, yeah, and I'm like, yo, then we left each other and then came back and he had his stub with him. [00:03:00] He was like, yo, boom, I got it. I was serious. I was like, Oh snap. He's really serious. And he showed me and basically his pay period. If it was there, it wasn't clearly defined. So he was unsure about what hours. It represent what he was getting paid, what hours were they for, what weeks were they for, what days were they for, he was legit I don't know, and I was like, bro you have to know, that's part, it has to be, and and New York has pay stub rules we're gonna talk about some of that, we'll touch on it here, but, Just one of those things, my daughter, like she was talking 19 years old, new to the mark, new to the workforce, right?

[00:03:43] Brian: And she was like, had questions with her girlfriend and whatnot. And I was like, Oh my goodness, man, I talked to a colleague. And his young sons were like, yo, my kids don't know anything about their child check, man. He was so excited about us doing this. He's man, that's going to be great. [00:04:00] These young folks don't know what's going on and it's very basic stuff that we as payroll professionals take it for granted because it's our life is second nature to us and so We really take it for granted.

[00:04:15] Brian: So that's been the, personal push and, just, yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:20] Walt: So thank you for sharing that before you would continue to want, I want it to like, because for people with their paycheck, it's personal. It's their livelihood.

[00:04:30] Brian: It impacts their personal, the most person, the most intimate thing.

[00:04:36] Walt: Yeah. So I want it to resonate with people who are viewing this to realize Hey, it's about. You, it's about you as the consumer, the employee, the contractor whatever, type of industry you're in, whatever type of work you, do, this is about you and empowering you with knowledge.

[00:04:53] Walt: And because we have real life experience our profession as payroll processors, [00:05:00] and through our personal lives through the people that are close to us. So I'm sorry for cutting you off there.

[00:05:05] Brian: No,

[00:05:06] Brian: you good. You good? That's exactly what I want to get outta you, man. Just because I know it's, it is, it's for both of us, right?

[00:05:13] Brian: We, come from a place where it's just like this stuff the, dollars and cents mean everything. You know what I mean? $20 changed my life back in the day, , you know what I mean? It's, super personal, it's super granular. Like it's, just intimate and any little thing we can teach somebody to save some money from this and be like, is worth it for me.

[00:05:35] Brian: You know what I mean?

[00:05:37] Walt: All right, so I know we left off on 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Yeah, what's the next piece

[00:05:43] Brian: you want to touch on the real quick, it's just again, these little like little things that have inspired me Adrian Resto, he's a fellow payroll professional that we had on our other show.

[00:05:55] Brian: And man, What a passion for payroll. He [00:06:00] had man, this guy, he said, first of all, he's at payroll is life, right? Payroll is life. And I even thought, like, when I first heard it, I was like, all right, this guy is taking it too far. But what he meant by that was. What he does, what we do as payroll professionals and getting those paychecks out to people impacts their lives, right?

[00:06:23] Brian: They get their check and they're able to go live and do, right? So he's right. Payroll is life. It drives life. It fuels life. So that's what it's like. Just that thought from him. And, he, and how he was so like, my hands have touched and paid over X, he had the number, like the number of transactions he did in his life.

[00:06:48] Brian: Yo, it was amazing thing to see how personal and intimate he took it. He took it to a new level for me. You know what I mean? And, again, is one is an inspiration for this and shout out to Adrian [00:07:00] Resto, man. I hope you, maybe we can have him on the show too and give him have, him share his passion with it.

[00:07:05] Brian: And then. And that led me to just do a little bit of research. And of course the, U. S. has a huge income gap. According to the World Bank data, the United States experiences a high income inequality compared to other developed nations. And it's a significant gap between high earners and low earners.

[00:07:27] Brian: You know what I mean? And another one was our checks just like how folks always compare check. Oh, what would you make? Would you make that? And it's I want to, as a payroll person, I want to urge folks to be careful with that. Yes, there's. Wait, what are they calling it now?

[00:07:46] Brian: Rate wage transparency and income transparency and all that stuff. That's cool, man. That's great. And that really is good for when you got to go to market and get a job. But when you're at a job and you're you talking to your [00:08:00] coworker, you should not be like, yo, here's my pay stub. Let me see your pay stub.

[00:08:04] Brian: How do they compare? No. Cause there's very personal things that happen there. So that's another motivation of why I want to do this is just really again, empowerment, right? Empowering people with the, with that knowledge of their paychecks and it starts right there, right? Like before we can do anything with our money, you got to understand what that is.

[00:08:25] Brian: And I'm a pass it off to you here and you tell us like what is that? What is it a paycheck? Yeah, but

[00:08:34] Walt: before I get into that, well said stuff. And it reminds me of stories that you and I have experienced, right? As professionals in the payroll industry, and we've gotten a call from an employee.

[00:08:48] Walt: Who was short paid or didn't receive a paycheck crying because they're like, I don't know how I'm going to feed my family. I'm a single mom. I'm a single parent. I got, I have to do this. I have to do that. [00:09:00] And to your point about what Adrian said, payroll is life. That's literally life for them like feeding their loved ones their, newborns, their little ones like that's life for them.

[00:09:13] Walt: And if it's not right, if their check is not right, that can throw their life off for a loop, right? Yeah. What is a paycheck? By definition, a paycheck is a check for salary or wages made out to an employee. In layman's terms, a payment that is a result of work you complete for an employer. A paycheck is a form of payment issued by an employer that an employee receives for work they have performed during a

[00:09:44] Brian: specific pay period.

[00:09:46] Brian: Yep. Specific pay period.

[00:09:49] Walt: Yes,

[00:09:50] Walt: So paycheck, right? Who's entitled to the paycheck? In other words, do you have to be classified as an employee to receive a paycheck? [00:10:00] The short answer is

[00:10:01] Brian: what? No,

[00:10:05] Walt: you technically don't have to be classified as an employee to receive payment for your work or your services, right?

[00:10:11] Walt: Because there's freelancers out there, independent contractors, some other type of workers, , all those different things that you may do that you receive paid for your services, right? That's something to really consider and think about that. When you think about who's entitled to receive a paycheck, what responsibilities does your employer have for your paycheck?

[00:10:35] Walt: Your employer is responsible for ensuring accurate and timely payment of your wages, withholding the applicable taxes and providing necessary documentation, such as pay stubs, so which Brian is going to touch on a little bit later, right? The difference between the paycheck and the pay stub, right?

[00:10:54] Walt: So your employer must. I repeat must

[00:10:59] Brian: [00:11:00] adhere

[00:11:00] Walt: to all applicable federal state and local regulations and taxes regarding your pay. Your employer is supposed to do right by you at the end of the day.

[00:11:11] Brian: What do you guys say? This is where it could get scary for folks, right?

[00:11:18] Brian: Because they can be like, it can be like, dang, I think something's wrong on my check. But all man, I need this job and I need my next check. I don't want to give them any reason to fire me because yo, this is better than nothing. And dang, you know what I mean? Man,

[00:11:36] Walt: how many times have we heard this Brian?

[00:11:39] Walt: Like I'm on the phone with the manager that I'm processing payroll for and they say, oh, this employee is always complaining. This employee is always saying this is employees always doing that and that's because that employees on top of their pay. Instead of looking at it from a different way that employs all you, analyzing what's going on with the pay stuff, but [00:12:00] to others, it looks like, Oh, this person's irritating as hell.

[00:12:04] Walt: God dang, they get on my nerves,

[00:12:05] Brian: man. And, folks, you can't get fired for asking about your pay. You know what I mean? If and, my point was like, if you're really scared. You can anonymously call other agencies and file complaints whether it's your state or the federal government department of labors, there, there is a way for you to get some help.

[00:12:27] Brian: You know what I mean? And, have some agency drill down on, the company anonymously, they won't find out, you know what I mean? And, if it's that bad, like there are methods and at some point in this show, we'll put some resources out there for folks and a better direction of how to get there but when you said that part of it, it was like, oh man, folks, you know what I mean?

[00:12:51] Brian: And yo, we're going to teach you all about some stuff that you're going to be like, oh crap, I'm a victim and it's what do I do? You know what I mean? The first thing is [00:13:00] call your payroll person because they're just like us and guess what if we'll have that conversation, right?

[00:13:07] Brian: You approach them right. You say the right things. You do the right thing. They're going to be able to help and they they'll be thankful if something's going wrong. They're going to be thankful. You know what I mean? Yep.

[00:13:18] Walt: Last part before I hand it off to Brian, what responsibilities do I have as an employee for my own

[00:13:27] Brian: paycheck? I like that one. So

[00:13:31] Walt: one of the best things you could do is educate yourself, right? Knowing your rights as an employee, knowing how your pay works knowing your responsibilities to accurately punch in and punch out to make sure that you're signing your time card.

[00:13:49] Walt: Case in point in this example, if you clock in and clock out of a time and attendance system, and your manager is not having you sign off on your hours before. Payrolls due [00:14:00] that could be something for you to look into, right? Because how do you know you're being paid properly?

[00:14:06] Walt: That's just an example. Just gave you a great one. Great

[00:14:08] Brian: one. So you want

[00:14:11] Walt: to make sure that you're adhering to the company policies and procedures and providing all necessary information and documentation. So another aspect of this that may impact you. That may impact your taxes, which is a little bit different.

[00:14:25] Walt: We'll get to that later. Yeah, we should up updating your address, right? So this is how it's going to impact you. If you live in a state that withholds local tax. Oh my

[00:14:34] Brian: gosh, I got a story, right?

[00:14:36] Walt: So if you move from one zip code to another zip code, your local might change.

[00:14:42] Brian: And or states, if you're living like on a border of somewhere and you can easily move across the border and still work in another state, the tri state area, right?

[00:14:53] Brian: There's always these tri state areas. And so

[00:14:58] Walt: those are examples of [00:15:00] the responsibilities that you have as an employee, because when you go to, when you go to file. Your taxes, you could be hit up later for some missed taxes that weren't done. So what, do you guys think?

[00:15:14] Brian: Well, we had Or I had, I don't remember even where it was by the way, folks, Walt and I have worked together over the years at different places doing payroll, by the way.

[00:15:25] Brian: I had somebody one year and this always comes up come W2 time. No, first of all, nobody looks at your checks, folks. The number one thing here, educate yourself. It means look at your pay stub. You have to look at your pay stub, right?

[00:15:39] Brian: So many people we talk to don't look at pay stubs. Our customers are you all, everybody that gets a paycheck, and they don't look at them. With that being said, come W2 time, they gotta do the taxes and they, don't look but I had a guy paying He paid a whole estate [00:16:00] he didn't live in for a whole year.

[00:16:04] Brian: It wasn't a lot. By check, it wasn't a lot. But at the end of the year, it was a nice amount of money. You know what I'm saying? And for the whole year. Why? Because he didn't, wasn't looking at his pay stub all year. So yes, perfect segue. And I'm going to talk about the pay stub. Cause you're like, well, wait, Walt just talked about the pay stub.

[00:16:26] Brian: No, Walt technically talked about the payment. A job, an employer or whatever a deal you make with anybody could be a bag of oranges because you said, Hey, I'm gonna do this for that. That's a payment. So what was talking about the transaction that monetary transaction, right? But the monetary transaction requires in most states.

[00:16:50] Brian: A document involved a receipt of payment, which we call a pay stub, right? Now, if you get a live check, it's [00:17:00] right there at the bottom, right? But you don't pay attention because all you want to do is rip it off and go cash it. Nowadays, you're just signing it and you're taking a picture. Click, You're putting that in the drawer and you don't even look at the stub. You don't even look at it. You just throw it, boom. We all look at the net amount. We're like, yup, that's about right. Boom. It's about right. Boom. So the pay stub is exactly that. It's a paycheck or a pay advice is a document provided to employees by their employer each time they receive a wage.

[00:17:33] Brian: Now here's the trick. The United States does not have a single universal template for pay stubs. They're all some things. There are some basic elements that should be on every check and I'll touch them real quick. That's the key. That's why this show will exist because the United States doesn't have a single universal template.

[00:17:55] Brian: So state to state. And on top of that, [00:18:00] the state regulates whether what goes on the paystub. So for instance, California is very heavily regulated Michigan. What was in Michigan? I'm in Florida, right? Michigan has requirements. They have about eight points of requirements for a paystub. Florida only has four.

[00:18:19] Brian: Cause we don't have state income tax in Florida, which is a downside because there's no regulatory agency helping our employees as opposed to California, who is very employee centric, but a ton of taxes. So these things we folks, we're going to talk about it. Got plenty of time. And you can see right there, just in that one statement, right?

[00:18:40] Brian: You would, you probably what the fuck is he talking about? So anyway, a pay stub should have your employee information, your jobs information, your pay period. Your earnings, your deductions the net pay, means what your take home is folks usually write your take home pay, [00:19:00] and then it might have some year to date information.

[00:19:03] Brian: It might have, well, your tax withholding should be there as well. And it might have some additional information that's helpful, but there's again, PTO.

[00:19:16] Brian: Like your PTO balance, but there's no state regulation for it unless you live in Cali, Cali requires that, right? So these are the little nuggets that we want you guys to be empowered with, to be fluent and savvy with, like your your state laws or lack thereof, right? Cause then you have a challenge if you're in a state where that doesn't really have laws, then you're left to the mercy of the company and what they want to do, but then you have more of a voice.

[00:19:43] Brian: You can anywho, I'm going down a rabbit hole. And then, again, state by state, these requirements change. And I covered the Florida, Michigan example. Some states have specific [00:20:00] regulations, others don't. Some states require electronic pay stubs, others don't. That is, that's, we just covered that's it.

[00:20:12] Brian: That's paycheck vs. pay stub. We covered the gist of what this show will be about. We're going to drill into all these little things that we touched on. If you're like, holy crap, these guys just blew my mind. Yes, that's exactly right. And that's the point. But we're going to help you, right? We're going to drop little nuggets here and there, help you guys out, help you learn, help you, try to teach you what we know, right?

[00:20:37] Walt: Absolutely. And look. We know that it's a lot of information, right? Yeah. There's so much information out there on the internet, on TikTok, on social media. There's so much information. So you want to always some tips if we can give you any tip is to listen to trusted sources that are out there, right?

[00:20:58] Walt: There's plenty of people that are [00:21:00] saying this based on their experience with their pain. Are there pace up right? And so there may be a group of people that can relate to this 1 person that's divulging this information. But you may, have a unique situation with your pay.

[00:21:18] Walt: That they're not speaking to, and you might be confused about, you know what I'm saying? So there are trusted sources out there that you can go to. This is 1 of them. Absolutely. We're going to have, we're going to have certified payroll pros here on the show and who know the industry and we're going to have real people who, are just employees and come and sit down so you can really realize and understand Hey, they have real people on the show and they're

[00:21:47] Walt: Trying to gain knowledge, right? They're speaking about their inexperience when it comes to their pay stuff, because there's so much of it that is not taught, right? Yes, so much. That's not taught in school in different levels of education. [00:22:00]

[00:22:00] Brian: It's not taught to you right?

[00:22:03] Walt: Great point. The companies aren't educating the employees, right?

[00:22:07] Walt: They'll, train you how to do your job. But they might not, train you and to understand how about how your pay works and this is what this is for.

[00:22:16] Brian: Absolutely. And we're guilty of it. We assume right that our customers have some baseline of information and it's not really until I get the young folks that they're more honest and authentic about not knowing.

[00:22:33] Brian: And I think maybe the older folks that they're probably like, Oh, I don't want to seem like I don't know I should know and you know what I mean? And hey, look that's, what this is for. You don't want to ask your payroll person, listen to the show and then we'll give you maybe we'll give you enough that now you can go to the payroll person feeling a little bit more confident about what you're asking about and what it is.

[00:22:58] Walt: There's so many things that you don't [00:23:00] understand that impact, not just in payroll, right? We have a, podcast that's just about payroll, but there's aspects of HR that may impact your paycheck. We may have somebody from HR come in here and speak to you about the things that you can do as an employee to help prepare yourself and better yourself when it comes to knowing the employee handbook reading that.

[00:23:24] Walt: Yes, sometimes you get that from your employer. You're like, okay, I'm just gonna sign this. Yeah,

[00:23:32] Brian: because that's part of it, right? Yeah, that's part of that's part of it. Because those things, those rules and regulations can impact your paycheck. I just thought of one. The rule of. You have to work the day before and the day after a holiday to get paid for the holiday.

[00:23:51] Brian: That's not in every company, but you won't know unless you read your employee manual or you now it's digital, right? So [00:24:00] it's it's no excuse. You should at least be skimming through it. You should be like searching through your right, your employee. Let me skim through this and look at the areas that are going to impact my pay.

[00:24:11] Brian: And impact me keeping the job. Guess what? You getting a laptop? You're not supposed to put Netflix on it. They find it, you get fired. It's in the manual. You didn't read it, you're fired. Like folks, right? So we love this opportunity to say, Hey, it's about your paycheck because we can talk about a lot of things that impact your paycheck.

[00:24:30] Brian: There's so much, there's so much. I just forgot about three things I wanted to say in trying to say that, you know what I'm saying? Like I was like, oh shit, nugget , We're

[00:24:40] Walt: not going to give away all the nuggets

[00:24:41] Brian: in this one. Not in one, thing.

[00:24:45] Brian: So

[00:24:45] Walt: That shows our passion for it, right? We're passionate about this. We want to give you all the information. We want to pour into you.

[00:24:54] Brian: Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I was just going to say that was one of the things I forgot you said, Hey, we're going to bring you [00:25:00] pros and Oh, there's a lot of clowns out there talking.

[00:25:03] Brian: we're on LinkedIn. You can go look at our pedigree on LinkedIn. We are payroll for real. With this, right? This is our, this is what, this is how our page is, how we get our paychecks. So we take it very, yeah, we're official edition. Like we take this very seriously.

[00:25:22] Brian: And so we're not just. We have no gain from it other than to help you folks, right? Just like our gain is helping somebody is we can empower somebody to go be better at right and just and it's comes Back to that empowerment because That's what we thrive off on. Our payroll podcast is helping payroll people.

[00:25:44] Brian: And it just clicked there's another great payroll professional out there, Gerard Hall. And he really planted the seed for us on this consumer education part, because he's yo, companies don't do enough. Companies don't do enough to educate us about our [00:26:00] paychecks. You know what I mean? And you, would think, oh, it's payroll.

[00:26:03] Brian: Is it not really? Cause we're busy just getting you that paycheck. You know what I mean? Or,

[00:26:08] Walt: if the company does have tips and stuff like that it's not delivered in such a way that I want to be careful, right? Because I want to be careful about what I say for companies, right? Yeah, no doubt.

[00:26:23] Walt: It's not as

[00:26:24] Brian: impactful.

[00:26:27] Walt: The information that source, right? Yes. A person's not gonna, you send somebody an email with a bunch of attachments, they're gonna be like, oh,

[00:26:34] Brian: that's just from my job. Yes, And folks get scared, jobs get scared. And think about it, again, shout out to Gerard, because he challenged us, right?

[00:26:42] Brian: He was like, yo, I'm tired of saying, I can't help you. I'm not a CPA. I can't help you. I don't do taxes. I can't comment on blah, blah, blah. He was like, man I'm, tired of that. I, we can, cause we can help a little [00:27:00] bit. We can't help even you. We, got worried. You got worried. Doing is Hey, we need disclaimers and yeah, we probably would. Depending on what we say Hey folks, we're not I don't know what it is yet, but we will disclaim as accordingly as we come up as we go along, cause right now. We haven't said anything other than you need to read your paystub and here's how we're gonna help.

[00:27:23] Brian: We're not giving you legal advice. We're not giving you a day. You go. There's your disclaimer. We're not giving you legal advice, right? It's just a knowledge for your own. Go do the research, go do, we're going to give you enough to go be dangerous with it and, go pull and tug on things. If you want to go and learn more, we'll give you the directionally correct way to go and do that.

[00:27:45] Brian: So yeah, man, folks, I just hope you. Are as excited as we are. We can't wait to just keep giving you more. Again, we just, we have so much to share. [00:28:00] We are official sources. We, have over 40 years of payroll experience between the two of us. So we are, you are in great hands and come along for the ride.

[00:28:15] Brian: Amen. What else, bro?

[00:28:18] Walt: No, I think that's it. I'll stay tuned. Yes, stay involved. This is going to be fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're not just going to be throwing information at you. This is going to be something that can really vibe and connect with

[00:28:31] Brian: you. So

[00:28:33] Walt: stay tuned and we want to hear from you.

[00:28:35] Walt: At the end of the day, this is about you. This is about your pain. It's about empowering you. Tell us what you want to hear. Tell us what you want to see. We're, all over the internet with social platforms, you can access us on YouTube. You can listen to us. You can watch us, whatever you want to do, whatever, however you learn, let us know, and we'll, bring

[00:28:56] Brian: it to you that way.

[00:28:57] Brian: Word. Love it. All [00:29:00] right. Great, man. Thank you. Thank you, brother. Thanks everybody. I love you. Peace.