Maternity Pay - How much should I have got this month?

[LikeAnAdventCandleButNotQuite]

Dont know if I am being daft, but I think I have been underpaid Maternity Pay. I get the crappest 6 weeks at 90% then 33 weeks at £128. No additional Mat Pay from company.

My monthly wage is £1668.00 before Tax and NI. I started Mat Leave at the beginning of the pay month (specifically to make life easier for them!). Paid this month (first month of leave) and have received £948.00.

This just does not make sense to me, I was expecting at least 4 weeks at 90% my 'weekly' wage....circa £345 per week. Hmmm....I was expecting my monthly wage to be £1300 or so this month (pre Tax and NI).

I have emailed HR manager but no reply as of yet..can anyone maybe see if I am getting it / calculating it wrong?

SMP is paid in weeks, not monthly, and must run (IIRC) sunday to sunday. Since there are only three such weeks you got 3 x 90% weeks this month. Which would be just over £1,000. Is £948 the net figure?

It sucks, but in April there would be five sundays, so five weeks of SMP that month.

Hmmm, didn't realise. My last payday was 16th Dec which included pay up until Thursday 8th Dec, so My January payslip should cover me from then...the 9th Dec onwards, which is when I started my Mat Leave.

So sorry, I'm getting in a muddle. Does today's payslip cover you up to today? Or until the 8th (like last month)? If it's up to today, I think the three week thing is right.

Whaterver the dates, you have to count the Sundays within the pay period to work out the number of weeks you get. It's daft, because it's all out of sync for people used to being paid monthly.

Well, if I was still at work, my slip would cover me the period 9th Dec - 12th Jan. That's the next pay period (get paid 3rd Fri of the month, each month).

That's 5 sundays, so should be more than I initially thought.

Hhm, does sound like it should be four weeks then, as per your first calculation - four weeks sandwiched between five sundays.

Good luck sorting it out.

Thanks Sleep

SMP can start on whatever day of the week you choose OP, so how many Sundays there are isn't relevant. An SMP week years ago used to have to be Sunday to Saturday, but not now.

So there's no reason you shouldn't have received the appropriate amount of SMP to reflect the amount of time in the pay month.

SMP is based on average pay during the Qualifying Period, which is weeks 17 - 25 of your pregnancy, so your monthly salary right now isn't necessarily the figure you should be using to work out how much you should be getting.

SMP can start on whatever day of the week you choose OP, so how many Sundays there are isn't relevant. An SMP week years ago used to have to be Sunday to Saturday, but not now.

So there's no reason you shouldn't have received the appropriate amount of SMP to reflect the amount of time in the pay month.

SMP is based on average pay during the Qualifying Period, which is weeks 17 - 25 of your pregnancy, so your monthly salary right now isn't necessarily the figure you should be using to work out how much you should be getting.

Am salaried, so get the same wage every month. My Mat Leave started Fri 9thDec so as I said, was expecting four weeks worth of pay at 90%. Am rather confused

I'd suggest giving whoever does the payroll a ring, saying you started mat leave on 9 December so are on SMP which is 90% for the first 6 weeks. Say the pay you've received is significantly less than 90% so could they please explain how it was calculated.

if you're emailing HR, she then had to presumably email payroll, wait for an explanation, then get back to you blah blah. If you just ring payroll and cut out the middle man you should get a quicker response.

Our HR does all payroll, so hopefully one stone, two birds. Will ring tomorrow afternoon if I haven't rec'd a response, even just a "we got your email" one.

Assuming 948 is the net wage what is the gross?