True Hourly Wage Calculator
Your real hourly wage after commute, costs, and unpaid hours.
$24/ hr
That's a 22% drop from the official rate.
Official hourly
$31/hr
Real hours / yr
2,496
Real pay / yr
$60,500
About
From the book Your Money or Your Life. Your salary divided by 40 hours overstates what you actually make. Add commute time, work-related costs (clothes, lunches), and the unpaid hours you spend recovering from the job, and your real hourly rate is much lower. This calculator does the math.
How to use
- Enter your annual take-home pay (after tax).
- Enter the hours you actually work, plus commute and decompression time.
- Enter the costs you only pay because you have this job (commute, lunches, work clothes, etc.).
- See your real hourly wage. Usually 30 to 50% lower than the official one.
FAQ
Why include commute time in the hours?+
Because you wouldn't be commuting if not for the job. From a 'time you've sold' perspective, commuting is part of the cost of working there.
What counts as work-related costs?+
Anything you pay because of the job: parking, gas for commute, work clothes, takeout lunches, daycare, business networking. Personal expenses like Netflix don't count.