For me, and I suspect this is pretty status quo in the US, the number that shows up in my checking account biweekly is my annual salary divided by 24, minus taxes and automatic deductions for mortgage, 401k, stock purchase, health plan, etc., with the occasional bonus thrown in to mix things up. It's a very arbitrary number and it would be impossible to back-calculate my overall compensation from it.
> the number that shows up in my checking account biweekly is my annual salary divided by 24
Either you're paid twice a month rather than every other week, or the biweekly number is your annual salary divided by _26_, or, I guess, you're subject to a strict requirement to take two weeks of unpaid vacation every year.
That's really something you should know and understand because you want to make sure you are getting paid correctly and catch any payroll errors. They are not uncommon, I've caught a couple myself, including an $1,800 mistake.
If you're paid biweekly (say, every other Friday) you have 26 pay periods. If you are paid semi monthly (say the first and the fifteenth) then you'll have 24 pay periods.
