Funny Money

It is the end of the work day here in California, and I just made a joke to the ladies in the front office: Another day, another $1…after taxes. And the Executive Assistant laughed. As I walked away, however, I thought, “It would have been a funnier joke if I had said, ‘another day, another $5.68 after taxes.’” Or some such ludicrous number because it would have made the EA think that I had actually figured it out. Which, of course, made me think: What would it be? How much do I really make a day? Well, since I consider it bad manners to work and tell, I’m not going to give you the actual number. But I will say that I know that the last Receptionist here made $30,000 a year, and since she no longer works here and our new Receptionist is a temp, I feel free to blab away and use that number for my means.

So, $30,000 salary. No overtime. And since we’re in tax time and 2008 is a Leap Year, let’s stick to 2007, shall we?

There were 365 days in 2007 (count ‘em if you have to).
And there were 52 weekends, which means 52 Saturdays and 52 Sundays = 104 days off.
According to the Office of Personal Management, we had 10 Federal holidays. Unless you work for Ebenezer Scrooge, you probably had Black Friday off (the day after Thanksgiving), and maybe Christmas Eve (or another day close to December 25th). So, for the sake of slave labor, let’s say that you had 12 days off and took no vacation time.

365 – 104 – 12 = 249 days

$30,000/249 = $120.48 a day.

Now! According to that bastion of knowledge Wikipedia, "the National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded that the combined federal, state, and local government average marginal tax rate for workers to be about 40%." (Yeah, that’s right. 40%).

$120.48 x 40% = $51.79.

Therefore $120.48 - $51.79 = $68.69 a day take home pay.

So, the joke is: Another day, another $68.69 after taxes…but before insurance premiums!
Hmm. I guess it's not that funny afterall.