Hourly to annual, and back again
The quick rule — double the hourly rate and add three zeros — assumes a 40-hour week and 50 paid weeks, so $28 an hour reads as about $56,000. It is close, but it breaks as soon as your week is not 40 hours or you take unpaid leave. This calculator uses your real hours and weeks instead.
Gross, not take-home
Every figure here is gross pay, before income tax, social security or national insurance, pension contributions and health premiums. Depending on country and bracket, take-home is commonly 65% to 80% of gross. For a net figure you need your own tax code and jurisdiction.
Comparing a salaried job with contract work
An hourly contract rate has to cover what a salary quietly includes: paid holiday, sick leave, employer pension contributions, equipment and the gaps between contracts. A rough guide is that a contract rate needs to be 25% to 40% above the equivalent salaried rate before the two are comparable. Set unpaid days to your expected downtime here to see the effect. If you are paid or scheduled by the shift, the work hours calculator turns clock-in and clock-out times into paid hours.
Semi-monthly is not the same as biweekly
Twenty-six biweekly pay periods are not twenty-four semi-monthly ones. Biweekly means two months a year contain three paychecks, which is useful to plan around: those months are the natural place for annual bills.