Seventy Two Thousand Dollars a Year is How Much an Hour

Travis Martin
2 min readApr 5, 2023

If you’re considering a job offer or negotiating your salary, it’s important to know your worth. One way to understand the value of a salary is to break it down into an hourly rate. For example, if a job pays $72,000 per year, how much does that work out to be per hour?

To find out, simply divide $72,000 by the number of hours worked in a year. Assuming a standard 40-hour workweek and two weeks of vacation, that comes out to 1,920 hours per year. When you divide $72,000 by 1,920 hours, you get an hourly rate of $37.50.

However, it’s not just about the hourly rate. The benefits that come with a job can have a significant impact on the overall value of a salary. Let’s take a look at two hypothetical job offers to illustrate the difference that benefits can make.

Salary

Company A offers a salary of $72,000 per year with a comprehensive benefits package. This includes health insurance, dental and vision coverage, a 401(k) retirement plan with matching contributions, paid time off, and a flexible spending account for healthcare expenses. The employer also offers paid maternity and paternity leave, tuition reimbursement, and an employee assistance program for mental health and wellness support.

Company B offers a salary of $72,000 per year but provides only the bare minimum in benefits…

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