Salary Calculator

The Salary Calculator converts salary amounts to their corresponding values based on payment frequency. Examples of payment frequencies include biweekly, semi-monthly, or monthly payments. Results include unadjusted figures and adjusted figures that account for vacation days and holidays per year.

Modify the values and click the calculate button to use
Salary amount
per
Hours per week
Days per week
Holidays per year
Vacation days per year

 

Result

  Unadjusted Holidays & vacation days adjusted
Hourly $50.00 $45.19
Daily $400.00 $361.54
Weekly $2,000 $1,808
Bi-weekly $4,000 $3,615
Semi-monthly $4,333 $3,917
Monthly $8,667 $7,833
Quarterly $26,000 $23,500
Annual $104,000 $94,000

This salary calculator assumes the hourly and daily salary inputs to be unadjusted values. All other pay frequency inputs are assumed to be holidays and vacation days adjusted values. This calculator also assumes 52 working weeks or 260 weekdays per year in its calculations. The unadjusted results ignore the holidays and paid vacation days.


Related Take Home Pay Calculator | Income Tax Calculator


A salary or wage is the payment from an employer to a worker for the time and works contributed. To protect workers, many countries enforce minimum wages set by either central or local governments. Also, unions may be formed in order to set standards in certain companies or industries.

Salary

A salary is normally paid on a regular basis, and the amount normally does not fluctuate based on the quality or quantity of work performed. An employee's salary is commonly defined as an annual figure in an employment contract that is signed upon hiring. Salary can sometimes be accompanied by additional compensation such as goods or services.

Wage

There are several technical differences between the terms "wage" and "salary." For starters, while the word "salary" is best associated with employee compensation on an annual basis, the word "wage" is best associated with employee compensation based on the number of hours worked multiplied by an hourly rate of pay. Also, wage-earners tend to be non-exempt, which means they are subject to overtime wage regulations set by the government to protect workers. In the U.S., these regulations are part of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Non-exempt employees often receive 1.5 times their pay for any hours they work after surpassing 40 hours a week, also known as overtime pay, and sometimes double (and less commonly triple) their pay if they work on holidays. Salaried employees generally do not receive such benefits; if they work over 40 hours a week or on holiday, they will not be directly financially compensated for doing so. Generally speaking, wage-earners tend to earn less than salaried employees. For instance, a barista that works in a cafe may earn a "wage," while a professional that works in an office setting may earn a "salary." As a result, salaried positions often have a higher perceived status in society.

Most salaries and wages are paid periodically, typically monthly, semi-monthly, bi-weekly, weekly, etc. Although it is called a Salary Calculator, wage-earners may still use the calculator to convert amounts.

Miscellaneous Employee Benefits

While salary and wages are important, not all financial benefits from employment come in the form of a paycheck. Salaried employees, and to a lesser extent, wage-earners, typically have other benefits, such as employer-contributed healthcare insurance, payroll taxes (half of the Social Security and Medicare tax in the U.S.) that go towards old age and disability, unemployment tax, employer-contributed retirement plans, paid holiday/vacation days, bonuses, company discounts, and more. Part-time employees are less likely to have these benefits.

Miscellaneous employee benefits can be worth a significant amount in terms of monetary value. As such, it is important to consider these benefits as well as the base wage or salary offered when choosing between jobs.

Self-employed Contractors

Self-employed contractors (freelancers who sell their goods and services as sole proprietorships) typically provide their own rates, which can be hourly, daily, or weekly, etc. Also, contractors generally do not have benefits such as paid time off, cheaper health insurance, or any other monetary perks typically associated with full-time employment. As a result, their pay rates should generally be higher (sometimes significantly so) than the salaries of equivalent full-time positions. Nevertheless, rates in the real world are driven by many factors, and it is not rare to see contractors take lower compensation.

How Unadjusted and Adjusted Salaries are calculated?

Using a $30 hourly rate, an average of eight hours worked each day, and 260 working days a year (52 weeks multiplied by 5 working days a week), the annual unadjusted salary can be calculated as:

$30 × 8 × (260) = $62,400

As can be seen, the hourly rate is multiplied by the number of working days a year (unadjusted) and subsequently multiplied by the number of hours in a working day. The adjusted annual salary can be calculated as:

$30 × 8 × (260 - 25) = $56,400

Using 10 holidays and 15 paid vacation days a year, subtract these non-working days from the total number of working days a year.

All bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, and quarterly figures are derived from these annual calculations. It is important to make the distinction between bi-weekly, which happens every two weeks, and semi-monthly, which occurs twice per month, usually on the fifteenth and final day of the month.

Different Pay Frequencies

The calculator contains options to select from a number of periods normally used to express salary amounts, but actual pay frequencies as mandated by varying countries, states, industries, and companies can differ. In the U.S., there is no federal law that mandates pay frequency, except one stating that employees must be paid in routine and predictable manners. Mandatory consistent payments give employees a lot of stability and flexibility. However, at the state level, most states have minimum pay frequency requirements except for Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina. For further details, consult state regulations regarding pay frequency.

The most common pay period frequencies tend to be monthly, semi-monthly (twice a month), bi-weekly (every two weeks), weekly, and daily. They are explained in the following chart.

Daily Pays every day, usually at the end of the day. Some short-term contractors are paid this way.
Weekly Pays once each week, usually on Fridays. Relatively costly for employers with 52 weeks a year, resulting in higher payroll processing costs, which is the main reason why it is less common than Bi-Weekly or Semi-Monthly.
Bi-Weekly Pays every two weeks, which comes out to 26 times a year for most years.
Semi-Monthly Pays twice each month, usually on the 15th and the last day of the month. Although common, it will result in inconsistent pay dates due to differences in dates from month to month.
Monthly Pays once per month. Usually the most cost-friendly option for employers. Not very common in the U.S.

U.S. Salary Information

In the U.S., salaried employees are also often known as exempt employees, according to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This means that they are exempt from minimum wage, overtime regulations, and certain rights and protections that are normally only granted to non-exempt employees. To be considered exempt in the U.S., employees must make at least $684 per week (or $35,568 annually), receive a salary, and perform job responsibilities as defined by the FLSA. Certain jobs are specifically excluded from FLSA regulations, including many agricultural workers and truck drivers, but the majority of workers will be classified as either exempt or non-exempt.

The federal minimum wage rate is $7.25 an hour. However, states may have their own minimum wage rates that override the federal rate, as long as it is higher. For instance, the District of Columbia (DC) has the highest rate of all states at $17.50 and will use that figure for wage-earners in that jurisdiction instead of the federal rate. On the other hand, Georgia has their minimum wage rate set at $5.15, but the $7.25 federal minimum rate overrides it.

Factors that Influence Salary (and Wage) in the U.S. (Most Statistics are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor in 2023)

In the third quarter of 2023, the average salary of a full-time employee in the U.S. is $1,118 per week, which comes out to $58,136 per year. While this is an average, keep in mind that it will vary according to many different factors. The following are only generalizations and are not true for everyone, especially in regards to race, ethnicity, and gender.

The 11 Annual Federal Holidays in the U.S.

January New Year's Day, Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.
February Washington's Birthday
May Memorial Day
June Juneteenth National Independence Day
July Independence Day
September Labor Day
October Columbus Day
November Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day
December Christmas Day

Although there are 11 federal holidays in the U.S., companies typically allow time off for 6 to 11 holidays. Generally, only employees who work in a branch of the federal government benefit from all federal holidays. Employees that work for private employers are subject to the policy of their employer. Also, unless stated in a contract or collective bargaining agreement, an employer is not obligated to pay an employee anything extra such as overtime for working on a federal holiday.

Other countries have a varying number of public holidays. Cambodia has the most days in a year in the world set aside to be non-working days, as established by law, at 28, followed by Sri Lanka at 25. Remember to adjust the "Holidays per Year" input to calculate a correct adjusted result.

Vacation Days, or Paid Time Off (PTO)

Traditionally in the U.S., vacation days were distinctly separate from holidays, sick leaves, and personal days. Today, it is more common to have them all integrated together into a system called paid time off (PTO). PTO provides a pool of days that an employee can use for personal leave, sick leave, or vacation days. Most importantly, the reasons for taking time off do not have to be distinguished. There's no need to fumble over whether to designate an absence as sick or personal leave, or to have to ask the manager to use a vacation day as a sick day. There are, however, some downsides to having them combined. For instance, if an employee gets very sick for a week and has to take five days off, their total pool of PTO will be reduced by the five days absent, which may force them to reconsider the week-long vacation they had originally planned.

In the U.S., the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require employers to give their employees any vacation time off, paid or unpaid. Therefore, when interviewing and deciding between jobs, it may be wise to ask about the PTO policy of each potential employer. With that said, the average American gets around 10 days of PTO a year; the bottom 25% of wage earners only get an average of four paid vacation days a year. Most companies tend to institute a policy that increases the amount of PTO an employee gets every several years or so as an incentive to retain workers.

Most employers (over 75%) tend to provide vacation days or PTO for many beneficial reasons. They can help prevent employee burnout, maintain employee morale, or be used for any reasonable situations where leave is necessary, such as medical emergencies, family needs, and of course, actual vacations. As an aside, European countries mandate that employers offer at least 20 days a year of vacation, while some European Union countries go as far as 25 or 30 days. Some other developed countries around the world have vacation time of up to four to six weeks a year, or even more.

How to Increase Salary

There are very few people in the world who wouldn't welcome a higher salary, and there are a myriad of ways in which a person can try to do so. While it is definitely easier said than done, it is certainly possible.

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