About Pay Conversions
Job offers speak two languages — one lists $28/hour, the other $60,000/year — and comparing them without converting is how people take pay cuts by accident. The conversion is one multiplication, but the mental version usually forgets the hours assumption or mixes gross with take-home.
Convert either direction with your real weekly hours (the default 40 isn't everyone's reality — 36-hour nursing schedules and 45-hour salaried norms change the math meaningfully). You get every pay period at once: annual, monthly, biweekly, weekly, daily.
Hours past 40 pay differently — price them with the Overtime Pay Calculator.
The Conversion Math
One line each direction:
Annual = hourly × hours/week × 52 Hourly = annual ÷ (52 × hours/week) Monthly = annual ÷ 12 · Biweekly = annual ÷ 26 · Weekly = annual ÷ 52
Worked example: $25/hour at 40 hours is $52,000/year — $4,333/month, $2,000/biweekly, $1,000/week. Reversed: a $75,000 salary at 40 hours is $36.06/hour. The quick mental shortcut: hourly × 2 ≈ annual in thousands ($25/h ≈ $50k) — exact at 40 h/week × 50 weeks.
Hourly to Annual at a Glance
Full-time (40 h/week, 52 weeks) — every row computed by this calculator:
| Hourly | Weekly | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| $15 | $600 | $2,600 | $31,200 |
| $20 | $800 | $3,467 | $41,600 |
| $25 | $1,000 | $4,333 | $52,000 |
| $30 | $1,200 | $5,200 | $62,400 |
| $40 | $1,600 | $6,933 | $83,200 |
| $50 | $2,000 | $8,667 | $104,000 |
The federal minimum wage ($7.25) annualizes to just $15,080 — context for why many states set higher floors.
Gross vs Take-Home, and Other Gotchas
Gross-to-net is the bigger conversion nobody's offer letter does for you: federal income tax, state tax (zero in nine states, meaningful elsewhere), 7.65% FICA, health premiums, and retirement contributions typically leave take-home at 65–80% of gross. A $60,000 offer is roughly $3,800–4,200/month in hand, not $5,000 — plan rent math on the smaller number.
Comparing hourly vs salaried offers fairly also means pricing what's bundled: salaried roles typically include paid time off (the 52-week assumption holding true), while hourly work often doesn't — two unpaid vacation weeks turn $25/hour into a 50-week year ($50,000, not $52,000). Overtime cuts the other way: hourly roles get 1.5× past 40, salaried-exempt roles get nothing.