What Do You Really Earn Per Hour?

$80K/yr ÷ 2,080 hours = $38/hour. Add commute time + work expenses + prep + decompression, and the real number is closer to $26-$30. We compute both.

How the math works

real hourly rate = (salary − work-related costs) ÷ (paid hours + work-adjacent hours)

Work-related costs include commuting fuel/parking/transit, dry cleaning, dining out near work, professional wardrobe maintenance, and after-work decompression spending. Work-adjacent hours include commute, getting-ready time beyond what you'd do as a remote worker, decompression at end-of-day, and unpaid overtime.

For an $80K salary with 60-min commute, $5K/yr work expenses, and 43 hours/week actual work: real rate is ~$26-$28/hour, against the $38/hour the salary-÷-2,080 calculation suggests. The 25-30% gap is what people miss when comparing job offers.

Math runs locally. Inputs never leave your browser. Source on github.

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