Earning Money — NSW Year 9 Advanced Maths
Wages, salaries, overtime, commission, piecework, leave loading, income tax and PAYG. Five subtopics and 100 practice questions with fully worked solutions, aligned to NESA outcome MA5-FIN-C-01.
Earning Money in NSW Year 9 Advanced
Earning Money is about how Australians are paid and taxed. In Year 9 Advanced, students calculate wages, salaries and overtime, earnings from commission and piecework, holiday pay with leave loading, income tax from a resident tax table with the Medicare levy, and net pay after PAYG tax and other deductions.
The five subtopics below cover wages and salaries, overtime, commission, piecework and leave loading, income tax, and PAYG and net pay. Earning Money is one of the 14 topics in NSW Year 9 Advanced Maths and belongs to NESA's Number and Algebra strand (NESA outcome MA5‑FIN‑C‑01, financial mathematics). It connects with simple interest earlier in the course and leads on to compound interest and depreciation later in Stage 5.
Subtopics
Earning Money: common questions
What is the difference between a wage and a salary?
A wage is paid for each hour worked, so pay changes with the hours. A salary is a fixed yearly amount: a salary of $58,240 is \(58\,240 \div 52 = 1120\) dollars a week, using 1 year = 52 weeks.
How is overtime paid?
Overtime is paid at a higher rate, usually time-and-a-half (1.5 times the normal rate) or double time. At a normal rate of $18.65, 5.5 hours at time-and-a-half earn \(5.5 \times 1.5 \times 18.65 \approx 153.86\) dollars.
What is leave loading?
Leave loading is an extra 17.5% of normal pay for the weeks of annual leave. For two weeks at $1197 a week, the loading is \(0.175 \times 2394 = 418.95\) dollars.
How is income tax calculated in Australia?
Subtract allowable deductions from gross income to get taxable income, then use the band of the tax table it falls in. The 2% Medicare levy is added on top, and the tax already withheld under PAYG is compared with the total to find a refund or an amount owing.
Which NESA outcome covers Earning Money?
Earning money sits in Stage 5 of the NSW Mathematics K–10 Syllabus (2022) under the Core outcome MA5‑FIN‑C‑01, which also covers simple interest and spending money.