Salary Calculator

Salary

A salary is a fixed amount of pay for a year of work, usually divided into equal paychecks. Salaried employees are paid the same amount each period regardless of the exact hours they put in, and their offers and raises are almost always quoted as an annual figure. Salaries are typical for professional, managerial and administrative jobs.

Wage

A wage is pay tied directly to time worked, usually quoted per hour. Hourly workers earn more when they work more hours and less when they work fewer, including when they take unpaid days off. Retail, hospitality, manufacturing, construction and many health care jobs pay wages.

In the US, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets the federal minimum wage, $7.25 an hour since July 2009, and requires overtime pay of at least one and a half times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek for non-exempt employees. Many states and cities set higher minimums, some above $16 an hour, and employers must pay whichever is highest. Tipped employees may be paid a lower cash wage of $2.13 an hour under federal law as long as tips bring them up to the full minimum.

The line between salaried and hourly is not the same as the line between exempt and non-exempt. To be exempt from overtime, an employee generally must be paid on a salary basis, earn at least the federal salary threshold of $684 a week ($35,568 a year), and perform executive, administrative or professional duties. A salaried worker below the threshold, or one whose duties do not qualify, is still owed overtime. Some states set higher thresholds.

When comparing a wage offer with a salary offer, convert both to the same basis and account for unpaid time off, overtime opportunities and benefits, which this calculator's adjusted column helps with.

Miscellaneous Employee Benefits

Pay is only part of compensation. Employer-sponsored health insurance, retirement contributions such as a 401(k) match, paid time off, life and disability insurance, tuition assistance, commuter benefits and stock grants can add 20% to 40% or more on top of cash pay. Federal data on employer costs show benefits making up roughly 30% of total compensation for private industry workers. When comparing two job offers, add up the value of the benefits, not just the salaries: a slightly lower salary with a generous match and low health premiums can be worth more.

Self-employed Contractors

Independent contractors and freelancers are paid by the hour, day or project and receive no benefits. They also pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare through self-employment tax, cover their own health insurance and retirement savings, and earn nothing for holidays, vacations, sick days or time spent finding clients. As a result, a contractor usually needs an hourly rate well above an employee's wage, often 1.25 to 2 times as much, to come out ahead. Use the adjusted column to see how unbilled days reduce annual income.

How Unadjusted and Adjusted Salaries are calculated?

The unadjusted column assumes you are paid for every working day of the year: 52 weeks times the days per week, or 260 days for a five-day week. With the default inputs, $50 an hour for 40 hours a week is $2,000 a week and $104,000 a year.

The adjusted column removes holidays and vacation days that are not paid. Ten holidays and fifteen vacation days leave 235 working days instead of 260, so the same $50 hourly rate produces $94,000 a year, about 9.6% less. Spread back over a full 2,080-hour year, that is the same as earning $45.19 for every hour of the year. If your employer pays holidays and vacation, as most do for salaried staff, the unadjusted column is the one that applies; the adjusted column is useful for hourly workers, contractors and anyone weighing unpaid leave.

Monthly, semi-monthly and quarterly figures are simply the annual amount divided by 12, 24 and 4. Weekly and biweekly figures divide by 52 and 26.

Annual = hourly rate × hours per week × 52

Adjusted annual

annual × (52 × days per week − holidays − vacation days) ÷ (52 × days per week)

Every adjusted figure is the adjusted annual amount divided by the number of hours, days or pay periods in a full year, so it shows the average pay per period once unpaid days off are taken out.

Different Pay Frequencies

Employers choose how often to pay, within limits set by state law, and the choice affects budgeting more than total pay.

• Weekly (52 paychecks): common for hourly and construction jobs. Easy to track overtime, but more payroll work for the employer.
• Biweekly (26 paychecks): the most common schedule in the US. Paydays fall every other Friday, so two months each year have three paychecks, which can be a useful bonus for savings if your budget assumes two.
• Semi-monthly (24 paychecks): pay on fixed dates, often the 15th and the last day of the month. Paychecks are slightly larger than biweekly ones and line up with monthly bills, but paydays fall on different weekdays.
• Monthly (12 paychecks): common in some professions and outside the US. Simplest for the employer, but requires careful budgeting over a long gap between paychecks. Some states restrict monthly pay for hourly workers.
• Quarterly and annual: rare for regular pay, but common for bonuses, commissions and distributions to business owners.
• Daily: used for day labor and some gig platforms that offer instant payouts.

U.S. Salary Information

Pay in the US varies widely by occupation, education, experience, industry and location. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes the most authoritative figures through its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, which covers about 830 occupations, and its Current Population Survey, which tracks median weekly earnings each quarter.

Education is one of the strongest predictors of earnings. The table below shows BLS median weekly earnings for full-time workers aged 25 and over in 2023, by highest level of education, along with unemployment rates. A bachelor's degree holder earned about two-thirds more than a worker with only a high school diploma, and doctoral and professional degree holders earned more than twice as much. Multiply weekly earnings by 52 to estimate annual pay: $1,493 a week is about $77,600 a year.

Occupation matters even more than education. Physicians, surgeons, dentists, lawyers, pharmacists, software developers, engineers and many managers have median wages well above $100,000 a year, while food preparation, personal care, cashier and many agricultural jobs have medians closer to $30,000 to $35,000. Within an occupation, experience adds a lot: pay often rises fastest in the first ten to fifteen years of a career and then levels off.

Location shifts pay substantially. Wages are highest in large coastal metropolitan areas such as San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., and in states such as Massachusetts, California, New Jersey and Washington. They are lower in much of the South and rural Midwest, though so are housing costs. Remote work has narrowed some of these gaps, as some employers now pay national rates and others adjust pay to where the employee lives.

Pay gaps by gender and race persist. Women working full-time earned roughly 83 cents for every dollar earned by men in recent BLS data on median weekly earnings, with the gap varying by age, occupation and race. Part of the gap reflects differences in occupation and hours, but research consistently finds a portion that these factors do not explain.

Nominal wages have grown faster than inflation over most recent decades, but not every year. During the high inflation of 2021 and 2022, prices rose faster than average pay, so real wages fell for many workers before recovering as inflation eased. When evaluating a raise, compare it with the inflation rate over the same period to see whether your buying power actually increased.

For any specific job, look up the occupation in the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook or the OEWS data for your state or metro area, and compare with salary ranges in job postings, which a growing number of states now require employers to publish.

How to Increase Salary

Most pay growth comes from a handful of moves: getting better at the job, proving it, asking for more and, when needed, changing employers.

• Know your market value. Research pay for your role, level and location using BLS data, salary surveys, posted pay ranges and conversations with peers. A specific, sourced number is much stronger than a feeling that you deserve more.
• Negotiate offers. The starting salary sets the base for every future raise, so a few thousand dollars negotiated at the offer stage compounds for years. Employers expect negotiation for most professional roles; ask for the number you can justify and consider negotiating signing bonuses, equity, vacation or remote work if base pay is fixed.
• Document results. Keep a running list of accomplishments with numbers attached: revenue won, costs cut, projects delivered, customers kept. Bring it to performance reviews and raise conversations, ideally timed before budgets are set.
• Build valuable skills. Certifications, licenses and skills in high demand, such as data analysis, cloud computing, project management, skilled trades or specialized nursing, raise earning power. Many employers will pay for training.
• Take on more responsibility. Leading a project, managing people or owning a key process positions you for promotion, which typically brings a larger raise than an annual merit increase.
• Change jobs when necessary. Workers who switch employers have historically seen faster wage growth than those who stay, especially during tight labor markets. Even if you do not leave, a competing offer can clarify your market value.
• Consider location and industry. The same skills can pay very differently in another city, another industry or a larger company.
• Pursue further education when the payoff is clear. A degree or credential can raise lifetime earnings substantially, but weigh the cost, the time out of work and the typical pay in the field before borrowing heavily.
• Add income beyond the main job. Freelancing, consulting, teaching or a side business can raise total earnings and build skills that eventually command a higher salary.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – Education pays
• U.S. Department of Labor – Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act