Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, there really are two parts to most people's pay. There is, of course, the part that we see and focus on in our check. That's our wage or salary, and this, of course, is the money we use to buy groceries, pay the rent or mortgage and handle other bills. But there's another part that sometimes I think is invisible to the employee, but it's very visible to the employer, and this is the cost of benefits. This is what the employer is paying to provide such things as health insurance, if it's provided, vacation and sick leave and maybe even disability and injury insurance. And importantly for employers who do pay these kinds of benefits, they can add up to 30 percent of the total cost of hiring people. These are very, very important. The bottom line, of course, is employees often don't recognize them and they don't really see them directly in their paycheck.

"Now some employers are smart, and I've seen this, where at the end of the year they will provide to their employees a summary that lists both the wages and salaries they've paid in cash to their employees and also it will note how much the benefits they have contributed for the employee, how much those have cost. And another very practical point here is that when you're comparing jobs, clearly, you want to include the cost of benefits in your comparisons."