Payroll question...WAS I GIPPED???!!!?

Question

I just started a job that offered a $36,000 salary for only my 1st pay period before my boss unfortunately dropped it to 27. Now I get paid semi-monthly.$36,000 should break down to about $1500 gross pay before taxes. I was wondering why my gross pay only came out to $1363 before taxes, causing my net pay to be only $1081???...it's strange to me b/c it should be a little more than that. That calculated annually only comes out to $32,726. That on top of the fact that I put 4 allowances on my federal tax form so I should have even more than that. Can someone who is knowledgeable about this please explain? Thank you.

Answer 1

I think your company may be paying  once every 2 weeks.  In this case, you will receive 26 checks each year.

If you were paid twice a month, ( say every 15th and 30th ),  it would be 24 checks.

Your HR department can confirm this with you easily.  Just go and ask them, that's their job.

Answer 2

Are you sure you are being paid semiweekly?  That's 2x a month.  Biweekly is every other week and would be roughly right.

You can use www.paycheckcity.com to judge if withholding is right for the amounts and pay period.

Though, of course, if your pay just dropped to $27K, find another job.