Tax reform: No noticeable paycheck changes? Here’s why

President Donald Trump has been touting the benefits of his historic tax reform plan for months, with one of its biggest bonuses being higher take-home pay for American workers. Yet only a few have noticed a difference so far.

According to a study published Monday, only 24% of American workers say they are aware of any changes to their paychecks and only 28% say they are “extremely satisfied” with the new changes in their compensation.

One of the reasons why a majority of people haven’t noticed a change could be that the increase “was simply too small to notice” Taylor Tepper, an analyst at Bankrate.com, the personal finance website that conducted the survey, told FOX Business.

“And that's a problem for your personal financial security,” Tepper said. Millions of Americans struggle to save, and carry too much credit card debt, and whatever tax relief they get from this bill could help them with both of those issues. But you have to notice the change in order to take advantage of it.”Tepper said workers need to look at their pay stubs and understand the changes.

“However small, use that money towards buttressing their emergency fund, or paying down credit card debt,” he said. “We're pretty far along in this economic expansion, and interest rates are rising. It's important, then, to be more of a saver, and less of a borrower.”

What’s more, out of the workers who have noticed a change, 73% of them were Baby Boomers (ages 54-72) and 64% were Gen Xers (ages 38-53). Both generations said they’ve seen direct effects to their pay from the revised federal tax law while millennials note other factors that have affected their checks this year, including a promotion/pay raise (26%), working a different amount of hours (24%), receiving a bonus (17%) or a demotion/pay cut (15%).