<prompt> Human: so I recently got promoted to assistant manager at a coffee shop for a huge retail company in the U.S. Im getting paid 17.50hour in California. not a whole lot, but it gets me by. Ive been doing the calculations on my paychecks and Im getting taxed 27 overall. when I made 12.05hr before I was getting taxed about 18. it just seems really high. Im single and dont claim any dependents. it just seems really high and Im not taking home as much as I thought I would. is this normal? do you think there could be some sort of mistake? edit: I work full time, 40 hrs a week.  <response>: Thats 36K a year, which puts you firmly in the 15 bracket Federally minus deductions and the 6 bracket for California, plus SSMedicare and other misc stuff; 27 seems about right. 