Why is my take-home pay so much less than my salary?

Looking at your paystub and not understanding where your money went is a common, frustrating place to be. The gap between what you earn and what lands in your account can feel like a mystery, or even a theft. It is neither. It is just a stack of deductions no one ever explained to you. Your take-home is your gross pay minus a few predictable things: federal and state taxes, Social Security and Medicare, and whatever you put toward benefits like health insurance or retirement. Each line on the stub is one of these. Once you can name what each deduction is, the mystery turns into a list, and a list is something you can actually understand. Sit down once with a single paystub and look up each line item by name; a quick search explains any of them plainly. Match every deduction to a reason. It takes maybe twenty minutes, and afterward the paper stops being a wall of confusion. You do not need to become an expert. You just need to know where your own money goes.