Lifestyle
Your true hourly wage
The "salary ÷ 2,080 hours" number is a fantasy. Count the unpaid overtime, the commute and what work costs you, and your real hourly wage looks different.
People translate a salary to an hourly rate by dividing by 2,080 hours, 40 a week, 52 weeks. Real work isn't like that: there's unpaid overtime, the commute you don't get paid for, and the money it takes just to show up. Count all of it and your true hourly wage is lower, often a lot lower, than the headline figure.
Hours worked beyond contract with no extra pay.
Commuting, lunches, wardrobe, parking.
Enter your salary and real hours.
Worked example
A $90,000 salary, 40 contracted hours plus 6 unpaid overtime and 5 commuting, $6,000 of work costs:
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Nominal hourly (salary ÷ contracted hours) | $47 |
| Real hours a year | 2,448 |
| Real hourly wage | $34 |
| The gap | $13/hr (26.8% less) |
On paper that's $47 an hour. Count the overtime, the commute and $6,000 of work costs, and it's really $34, 26.8% less. That gap is the honest price of the job, and the number to use when weighing a shorter commute or a role with real boundaries.
Questions
Why count the commute?
Because it's time you spend for the job that you can't spend on anything else, and it costs money too. A shorter commute is effectively a raise in your true hourly wage, sometimes a bigger one than a modest salary bump.
What are "work costs"?
Everything you spend to hold the job: commuting (gas, transit, parking), lunches out, work-appropriate clothes, and the like. They come out of your pay before it does anything for you, so they belong in a true hourly figure.
How do I use this?
To compare jobs honestly. A higher salary with a brutal commute and constant unpaid overtime can pay less per real hour than a lower salary with boundaries. The real hourly wage puts the two on the same footing.
Related tools
- Hourly to salary convert a wage the standard way
- Overtime pay when the overtime is paid
- W-2 vs 1099 compare two offers on take-home
A framing tool from your own inputs, not tax or financial advice.