What is total compensation?
About this video
Sal compares two job offers by total compensation. Job A pays a $55,000 salary plus a $1,000 bonus, for $56,000. Job B pays only $45,000 with no bonus, but adds $8,000 of health insurance and a 7% 401k match worth $3,150, for $56,150, so its total package is actually higher.
You'll be able to
- calculate total compensation by adding salary, bonus and the value of benefits.
- calculate the value of a percentage 401k match.
- explain why untaxed benefits can be worth more than the same amount of cash.
Key words
- Total compensation
- Everything a job gives you: salary, bonus and the value of benefits.
- Base salary
- The fixed yearly pay before bonuses or benefits.
- Bonus
- Extra cash pay on top of salary, which is taxed.
- 401k match
- Money your employer adds to your retirement account to match what you put in, up to a limit.
- Tax deferred
- Money you don't pay tax on now but may pay tax on later.
Transcript
- [Instructor] Let's say that you've just gotten these two job offers and your goal is to figure out which one gives you the most total compensation. So pause this video and see if you can figure out the total compensation for job A and for job B. And then of course, we can compare them.
Alright, now let's work through this together. So I can just put a line here. Lemme do this in a color we can actually see. So total compensation. Job A is pretty straightforward because they give you a base salary and a bonus, and there's not really much in the way of benefits here.
So we just add 55,000 to $1,000 bonus. You are going to get $56,000, and essentially, that's all in terms of taxable pay. Now, job B, there's no bonus, but there are definitely some benefits. We have the health insurance here, and then you have the 7% 401k match, which means that if you contribute about, up to 7% of your income, once again, that's gonna be tax deferred.
You won't have to pay it now, and then later, when you take it in retirement, then you'll pay taxes. But then you might be making less money and at least you've deferred those taxes. We could talk more about the present value of money, but even more than just being able to defer the taxes, the company is matching you.
So for every, up to 7%, for every dollar you put in, they're going to give you another dollar above and beyond this $45,000. So this is essentially worth 7% of $45,000. If you take 7% times 45,000, let's see, that's going to be, that's going to be equal to 31, $3,150.
And this is tax deferred as well. You're not going to be paying taxes on it immediately, but in the future, it's going to be in your 401k. You might have to pay taxes in the future, but it still, is going to be deferred. So if we were to just add up these things, even though this right over here is tax deferred, and this right over here, you're not going to have to pay taxes on it, but let's just add everything up.
8,000 plus 3,150 is 11,150, plus 45,000 is going to be 56,150. Did I do that right? Yes, I think that is right. So this is interesting. Even though job B has a lower salary and actually has no bonus because of these benefits, and health insurance is actually a pretty expensive benefit, you are now actually getting a total compensation package that is higher in job B than in job A.
And if health insurance is something you need, you don't have any other source of it, this is especially useful because you are not going to have to pay taxes on this $8,000. If a job just gave you an $8,000 cash bonus, you will pay taxes on that. And then if you on top of that, had to then use that to pay for health insurance, well then you're definitely better off with a scenario like this.
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