A stipend is a payment made to a trainee or learner for living expenses, unlike a salary or wages, which are paid to an employee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the terms “stipend” and “salary” are often used interchangeably, the U.S. Department of Labor has a specific stipend definition with several criteria that must be met to pay a stipend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To merit a true stipend check, the job must focus on training rather than employment, says the University of Washington. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defining a stipend:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you meet the requirements to be considered a trainee rather than an employee, the amount of the stipend is at the employer’s discretion. Your stipend check can be less than the minimum wage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stipend checks aren\u2019t considered wages so you won’t pay Social Security or Medicare taxes on them. But they still count as taxable income when it comes to your income taxes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s the catch: your employer won’t withhold any income taxes from that stipend check. So you\u2019ll need to set aside some of your stipend money to pay any taxes you owe at the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re working for an employer, rather than being in a trainee or student position, make sure your payments are not classified as stipend checks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why not? Because \u201cstipend\u201d means you can be significantly underpaid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re classified as an employee, you’re entitled to the minimum wage as well as overtime pay, which means 1.5 times your normal hourly rate for any hours worked over 40 in a given week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re only getting a stipend, you\u2019re not entitled to either one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What does a stipend mean? How is a salary different? Learn what a stipend is, the eligibility rules, and if stipends are taxable with our financial glossary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"What Is a Stipend? | Quicken","_seopress_titles_desc":"What does a stipend mean? How is a salary different? Learn what a stipend is, the eligibility rules, and if stipends are taxable with our financial glossary.","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-financial-terms"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/trainee-taking-written-test.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4517,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions\/4517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}