St Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Is there a difference between biweekly pay vs semimonthly pay? It’s easy to assume that biweekly and semimonthly/ bimonthly pay are the same.
They are both issued at least twice a month, and both are popular methods to process payroll but is there a difference?
Recent debates on social media about the new civil servant pay system has sparked a conversation about whether there is a difference between biweekly vs semimonthly pay.
Recently, the Government announced that civil servants of the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis will be paid twice monthly, effective July 01, 2023. According to the St. Kitts and Nevis Information Service, the new pay dates are the 14th and 28th of each month.
The question now is what kind of payroll is this? Biweekly or Semimonthly?
Usually, biweekly pay describes when employees are paid every other week on a specific day of the week. For example, if you want to establish a biweekly pay schedule, you might choose to pay your employees every other Friday. Since every calendar year has 52 weeks, this results in a total of 26 paychecks per year. Whereas semimonthly pay refers to paydays that occur 24 times per year (12 months in a year multiplied by 2 paydays per month = 24 paydays). With 52 weeks in a year and 12 months in a year, each semimonthly pay period will have on average 2.16667 weeks per semimonthly payday.
The Government is clearly using a semimonthly payroll system, not biweekly. The question now is “Which one is better and why?” Well, it depends as both systems have their pros and cons. Because employers run payroll less for semimonthly frequencies than biweekly, their employees’ paychecks will be greater while biweekly paychecks will be less money, but they will provide the two additional paychecks to make up the difference.
This should clear up the debate.
