The "stated hourly wage" your employer quotes is almost always annual salary ÷ 2,080 (52 weeks × 40 hours). That number is convenient and almost universally wrong. It treats your commute, your unpaid prep, and your after-hours email as if they did not exist — and it ignores the cost of getting to work and dressing for the role.
The formula we use
True hourly wage = (Annual salary − Job-specific costs) ÷ Real annual hours
Where:
- Real annual hours = (Weekly stated hours + weekly commute hours + weekly unpaid prep hours) × Weeks actually worked
- Weeks actually worked = 52 − paid time off in weeks
- Job-specific costs = annual commute cost + work-only clothing/equipment cost
What this calculator deliberately omits
We do not subtract income tax because tax situations vary too widely to generalize — a single filer in Texas and a married filer in California with the same salary keep very different amounts. We also do not subtract the cost of meals bought at work, childcare, or the productivity tax of recovering from a stressful job on weekends. Those are real, but they are subjective. The numbers above are the hard, countable ones.
How to use the result
The true hourly wage is most useful as a comparison tool. If you are weighing two offers, run both through this calculator — a $70,000 job with a 90-minute commute can pay less per real hour than a $60,000 job you can walk to. The same logic applies to promotions that add responsibility without proportionate pay: if a step up adds five hours of weekly unpaid work, your true wage may go down even as your salary goes up.