The Slatest

Reminder: Your Paycheck Just Got Smaller

During a previous round of negotiations in 2011 to extend the payroll tax holiday, the Obama administration used a countdown clock to show when the tax break would expire

Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.

Just a friendly reminder that if you got your first paycheck of 2013 today, it’s (probably) smaller after the payroll tax holiday expired at the beginning of this year.

The payroll tax holiday wasn’t included in fiscal cliff negotiations, which, as Slate’s Matthew Yglesias argued back in November, is a pretty big oversight.

The Washington Post explains that those making the average weekly income of $818.69 will see each bi-weekly paycheck cut by $32.75 now that the tax holiday has expired. The payroll tax holiday cut 2 percentage points from every American’s Social Security payroll tax at the end of 2010 until the end of 2012.

So, understandably, there might be some anger out there following what to most workers will essentially feel like a pay cut. Want to blame someone? As Dave Weigel explained earlier this week, despite a recent meme levying ire at Obama, you can pretty much just blame everyone involved in the negotiations.