Wage (USA)

Wage

A wage refers to an amount of money that employers pay their staff by the hour or day. A wage is a fixed rate, so individuals typically receive their pay to reflect the hours or days they worked throughout the week. For example, a retail employee who works 30 hours during a working week might earn $18/hour. After their 30-hour week, they will receive a paycheck showing a gross wage of $540 (30 x $18). If the employee worked 25 hours instead, their pay would equal $450 (25 x $18) at the end of the working week. For workplaces that may need employees full time but operate on wages, companies can turn a salary into an hourly wage. For instance, consider a warehouse that wants to employ a manager for an hourly rate, that would equate to $65,000 per year on a full-time schedule. The employer can divide the expected salary by the number of weeks in a year (52) and 40 hours in a working week. The manager wage would equate to $31.25 per hour. The amount the manager earns is now variable, depending on how much they work.