Salary to Hourly Calculator

Salary and Wage

Although the definition varies slightly between countries, the most commonly accepted difference between a salary and a wage is, that a salary is considered to be a fixed amount of money assigned to a worker on a monthly or a yearly basis, which does not reflect the hours they work, but rather the overall dedication and labor associated with the work. 

An hourly wage is pay, which is directly proportional to the number of hours worked.

So, a salaried person has more stability offered and might benefit from this arrangement if they can complete their assignments fast, or if they have to skip some working hours due to medical and personal emergencies, which should not reflect on their paycheck if done within the permitted conditions signed within the labor contract.

An hourly wage worker will have a different weekly or monthly paycheck, depending on the hours they worked. The disadvantages are clear, as hourly work is less stable in terms of paychecks and offers less help when the person is unable to work. On the other side, most salaried positions come out “less valued” than hourly positions, when accounting for the per-hour pay rate, which can be often the only advantage. 

However, this is only true if the jobs are of similar nature and requirements. Most high-ranking jobs are almost exclusively salaried.

Calculating a Salary Into an Hourly Wage

It might be interesting for people who are salaried workers to try and approximate their hourly wage. 

This might be useful for a variety of reasons, such as comparing the salaried work with some other hourly alternatives, or simply to be more aware of the value of our time, when we are on the clock. 

Some salaried jobs offer a decent wage, but very long hours. Some people might realize, that despite the higher salary, they are working for less than the hourly minimum wage due to the long hours they put in. This might be a good prompt to ask for a pay raise or re-negotiate your work conditions.

In order to recalculate your salary (S) during a period of time into an hourly wage (W), you essentially just need to know how many hours (H) you work during one salary period (P). The salary period is essentially an indicator of how often you get paid. This can be daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. 

Alternatively, you might know your yearly salary, but surely, it gets paid more frequently than just once a year.

The formula for calculating your hourly salary is as follows.

W = S\div(P*H)

Worked Out Example

Cody works 40 hours a week, 30 weeks a year. His yearly salary is $26,400. What is his hourly salary?

We define the following variables:

Now we substitute these values into the formula.

 W = S\div(P*H) 

= 26,400\div(30*40)

= 26,400\div1,200 = 22.

His hourly wage is $ 22.