The second paycheck has a different yield
A household calculation reveals differences a headline tax wedge hides.
Suppose one adult in an OECD model couple earns the average wage, the other has no earnings, and the couple has two children. Now compare the published case where the second adult earns 67% of the average wage. How much additional source-defined net income accompanies that extra gross salary?
The answer is 54.7 per 100 gross in Belgium and 80.4 in Sweden. Denmark is 62.2. The Sweden–Belgium difference is 25.7 points. These are local-currency ratios, so no exchange-rate conversion is needed.
The family changes the question
A tax wedge for a single average-wage worker answers a different question: the gap between employer labour cost and source-defined net pay for that case. It is not the share of a second earner’s gross pay that increases a family’s net resources. Household taxation and applicable cash benefits can make the two comparisons diverge.
We call this finite-difference diagnostic Paycheck Yield. It compares published model cases, not tracked families. The first earner, the two-child configuration and the year are held fixed. It does not subtract employer contributions again from the OECD net-income amount.
A useful outlier also exposes the definition
Colombia’s source-defined yield is above 100. The captured family cases include cash benefits, while the OECD tax measures can exclude non-tax compulsory payments. It would be wrong to read this as proof that workers keep every peso after all mandatory deductions. The full country table retains the value and its definition rather than quietly capping it.
Nor does a lower yield establish that a country is worse for working families. Childcare costs, publicly provided services, working hours and benefits outside the source calculation could change the assessment. This diagnostic measures one channel, not the total return to working.
How we calculated this
2025 OECD comparative Taxing Wages cases C_C2/AW100/NOEARN_UNEMP and C_C2/AW100/AW67. Yield = 100 × ΔNIAT_XDC / ΔGEBT_XDC. All 38 covered countries are published in the model table. Source-defined net income includes applicable cash benefits but can omit non-tax compulsory payments; it is not a universal payslip or post-living-cost definition. This is a discrete scenario difference, not a marginal rate or a measured effect of taking a job.
These analyses were selected after exploring the available data. They are descriptive findings, not preregistered hypothesis tests. Future source revisions or a different comparison set can change the numbers.
Sources and reproduction
All calculations and source hashes · Reproduce with Python · Pinned source release
Citation: Pluraterra. “The second paycheck has a different yield.” 2 November 2026. Analysis v1, source release 2026-11-02-r3. This analysis is derived by Pluraterra; underlying source attribution and reuse conditions remain applicable.