Let's Take A Look At Andrew McCutchen's Pay Stub

Over on reddit, user Grassiii has posted a photo of Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen’s latest pay stub. Grassiii says that a friend found it on a recent tour of the visitor’s clubhouse at Wrigley Field, where the Pirates played the Cubs over the weekend. Let’s have a look (you can click the magnifying glass in the top left corner to make the photo bigger):

The first thing that stands out is that McCutchen takes home over $400,000 twice a month. That’s a lot of money! It’s not exactly news that McCutchen is wealthy—he signed a six-year, $51.5 million extension three years ago—but it’s different seeing it in pay stub form. This looks pretty similar to the thing that your work gives you twice a month, except it will probably take you years to earn this amount of money, not 15 days.

It is also interesting how many different taxes McCutchen has to pay, so many that they can’t all fit on the page. McCutchen has to pay many of the same taxes that any Pennsylvania worker has to: Medicare, OASDI (Social Security), PA SUI EE (Pennsylvania unemployment insurance), Federal Income Tax, etc. But you can also see the effect of the Jock Tax, where professional athletes must pay taxes to the states and sometimes cities they play in, hence the taxes paid in Illinois, Missouri, St. Louis etc.

One thing that is unclear is McCutchen’s MEALS earnings, which is presumably his meal per diem while playing on the road. This season the per diem is $100.50 for every day on the road. But McCutchen was on the road for either 8 or 9 days during the pay period, and his MEALS earnings is only $243.75. Perhaps it is actually accounted for somewhere else?

There are probably other interesting things in here. If you spot them, let us know in the comments.

[ reddit]

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