Source: https://clockwage44.com/tools/job-offer-comparison-calculator/ ClockWage44 is a free hours and pay tracker app for iOS and Android: log shifts across every job and see take-home pay after federal tax, state tax, FICA, overtime and deductions. Get the ClockWage44 app: [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hours-tracker-time-pay/id6762208276?pt=120576754&ct=clockwage44.md&mt=8) · [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ehmtech.clock&referrer=utm_source%3Dclockwage44.md) # Hourly Job Offer Comparison Calculator Compare two hourly job offers: 2026 take-home pay after federal tax, state tax, FICA, shift premium, and commute, plus the break-even hourly rate. _Interactive tool: open [the web page](https://clockwage44.com/tools/job-offer-comparison-calculator/) to use it. This Markdown copy has the text only._ Hours over 40 in a week are paid at 1.5x. The overtime rate includes your shift premium, per 29 CFR 778.207. Hours over 40 in a week are paid at 1.5x. The overtime rate includes your shift premium, per 29 CFR 778.207. You are picking one of these two offers, not working both. Both are modeled as 52 weekly paychecks a year. Filing status sets your standard deduction and your bracket thresholds. It leaves the extra 0.9% Medicare tax alone: that starts at $200,000 of one employer’s pay whatever your status. Enter your state's effective income tax rate. The nine no-income-tax states use 0%. Typical effective rates run 3 to 5 percent. Both offers are assumed to be in the same state. The verdict is decided by annual take-home after commute, and only by that. Effective net hourly is a second lens on the same two offers, never a tiebreaker that overrides the money. Federal tax year 2026. Estimates only, not tax or legal advice. Hours above 40 a week are paid at 1.5x on the rate plus the shift premium. Medicare includes the extra 0.9% once an offer pays more than $200,000, whatever your filing status. Enter both offers to see the rate the weaker one would need. Estimates only, not tax or legal advice. Figures use 2026 federal rules. Talk to a tax professional before you sign anything on the strength of a number from a web page. ## How to compare two hourly job offers Two offers, one seat. The only fair comparison runs both of them through the same four steps and looks at what is left at the end, not at what is printed on the front of the letter. **Step one: annual gross.** Add the shift premium to the base rate, because a night or weekend differential is part of your regular rate under 29 CFR 778.207. Pay the first 40 hours of the week at that combined rate and everything above 40 at 1.5 times it, then multiply the week by 52. **Step two: federal income tax.** Subtract the standard deduction for your filing status ($16,100 single for 2026) and walk the remainder up the brackets: 10%, then 12%, then 22%, and so on. **Step three: FICA and state tax.** Social Security takes 6.2% of gross up to the $184,500 wage base, Medicare takes 1.45% of all of it plus another 0.9% on pay over $200,000 whatever your filing status, and your state takes its effective rate off the top. **Step four: the commute.** Multiply each offer's weekly driving, parking, or transit cost by 52 and subtract it from that offer's own take-home. Commute is a much bigger share of a $22 an hour paycheck than of a six-figure salary, which is exactly why the salaried comparison tools ignore it. The ordering point matters more than any single line. On the two offers below, the annual **gross** gap is $1,716.00 in Offer A's favor and the annual **take-home after commute** gap is $530.17. Roughly 69% of the raw advantage is eaten by tax and the extra commute before it reaches the bank. The offer that looks ahead on the first line of the table is often barely ahead by the last one. ## Worked example: $22 an hour with overtime against $26 an hour without Filing single, state income tax rate 4%, 2026 federal figures. **Offer A:** $22.00 an hour, 46 hours a week, no shift premium, 2.5 unpaid break hours a week, $30 a week commute. **Offer B:** $26.00 an hour, 38 hours a week, a $1.50 an hour shift premium, no unpaid breaks, $15 a week commute. | Line | Offer A | Offer B | | - | - | - | | Effective rate (base plus premium) | $22.00 | $27.50 | | Regular hours / overtime hours | 40 / 6 | 38 / 0 | | Weekly gross | $1,078.00 | $1,045.00 | | Annual gross | $56,056.00 | $54,340.00 | | Federal taxable (gross minus $16,100) | $39,956.00 | $38,240.00 | | Federal income tax | $4,546.72 | $4,340.80 | | Social Security (6.2%) | $3,475.47 | $3,369.08 | | Medicare (1.45%) | $812.81 | $787.93 | | State income tax (4%) | $2,242.24 | $2,173.60 | | **Annual take-home** | **$44,978.76** | **$43,668.59** | | Commute ($ a week x 52) | $1,560.00 | $780.00 | | **Take-home after commute** | **$43,418.76** | **$42,888.59** | | Weekly take-home after commute | $834.98 | $824.78 | | Hours committed per week | 48.5 | 38.0 | | **Effective net hourly rate** | **$17.22** | **$21.70** | The federal figure is the line a reader is most likely to check, so Offer A's bracket walk in full: $12,400 x 10% = $1,240.00, then ($39,956.00 minus $12,400) x 12% = $27,556.00 x 12% = $3,306.72. Total: **$4,546.72**. **The difference:** $43,418.76 minus $42,888.59 is **$530.17 a year**, which is **$44.18 a month** and **$10.20 a week**. **The split verdict, spelled out.** Offer A pays $530.17 a year more. Offer B pays $4.48 an hour more for the time you actually give it. Offer A buys that $530.17 with 10.5 extra hours a week (46 paid plus 2.5 unpaid, against 38), which works out to roughly 546 extra hours a year for about 97 cents of take-home per extra hour. Framed that way, most people stop calling it a close call. ## The break-even rate to bring to a negotiation The break-even rate is the hourly rate the weaker offer would need, with everything else about it unchanged, to draw level with the stronger one on take-home after commute. Same hours, same shift premium, same unpaid breaks, same commute: only the base rate moves. Work it on the example. Hold Offer B at 38 hours, a $1.50 premium, no unpaid breaks, and a $15 weekly commute, then raise its base rate until its take-home after commute reaches Offer A's $43,418.76. The solve lands at $26.351414 an hour, which the calculator rounds up to **$26.36** so the figure actually clears the target. Rounding to the nearest cent instead would give $26.35, which lands at $43,416.63, or $2.13 short of breaking even. Offer B's asking rate is $26.00, so the ask is **36 cents an hour**. That is what makes the number useful. "I have a competing offer and I need $26.36 to make the numbers work" is a small ask and a checkable one, which is a very different conversation from "can you do better." The figure hides something, too. Even at $26.36, Offer B still hands 10.5 hours a week back to you. Break-even on money is a clear win on time. One last distinction. This page assumes you are picking one offer and turning the other one down. If the real choice is working both jobs at the same time, that is a different question with a different answer, and the [two job take-home pay calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/two-job-take-home-pay-calculator/) handles stacked income and the withholding gap two W-4s leave behind. ## Frequently Asked Questions Common questions about hourly job offer comparison calculator ### How do I compare two hourly job offers with different hours? Convert both to annual gross first, then to annual take-home, then subtract each job's commute. Rate alone is misleading whenever the hours differ. In the example on this page, Offer B pays $27.50 an hour with the premium against Offer A's $22.00, a $5.50 gap, and still loses by $530.17 a year, because Offer A's 46-hour week includes 6 overtime hours at 1.5x while Offer B is capped at 38. ### Does a shift differential raise my overtime rate? Yes. A night, weekend, or undesirable-shift premium is part of your regular rate under 29 CFR 778.207, so overtime is 1.5x base plus differential, not 1.5x base alone. This calculator applies the premium to overtime hours automatically. Offer B's $1.50 premium would be worth $1.50 x 1.5 = $2.25 on every overtime hour, if Offer B had any. The [shift differential calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/shift-differential-calculator/) breaks a single job's premium out on its own. ### Should I take the offer with the higher hourly rate or the one with more hours? It depends on which question you are asking, and the calculator answers both. Annual take-home after commute tells you which offer puts more money in your account. Effective net hourly rate tells you which offer pays better for the time you hand over. In the example, Offer A wins the first ($530.17 more a year) and Offer B wins the second ($21.70 an hour against $17.22), because Offer A asks for 10.5 more hours a week. A split verdict is not a bug in the comparison. It is the actual trade you are being offered. ### What is a break-even hourly rate on a job offer? It is the rate the weaker offer would have to pay to end up exactly even with the stronger one, with everything else about it unchanged: same hours, same premium, same commute, same unpaid breaks. In the example, Offer B would need $26.36 an hour instead of $26.00, a raise of 36 cents. That is a small number, and a specific one, which is what makes it worth saying out loud in a negotiation. Bring the figure, not a feeling. ### Does no tax on overtime change which offer wins? It can widen the gap for the offer with more overtime, and it never narrows it. The OBBB overtime deduction (IRC §225, tax years 2025 through 2028) lets you deduct the half-time premium portion of qualifying overtime, up to $12,500 single or $25,000 married filing jointly. This calculator does not model it, so the overtime-heavy offer is shown at slightly less than its full value. In the example, Offer A's $530.17 lead is a floor, not a ceiling. The [take-home pay calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/take-home-pay-calculator/) covers a single job's full picture. ### What about health insurance, PTO, and retirement match? This calculator compares cash, because at the offer stage most hourly workers know the rate, the schedule, and the commute long before they see a benefits summary. Benefits can be worth thousands and can absolutely flip the answer. The right way to use the tool is to get the cash gap first, then judge whether the benefits difference is bigger than it. If Offer A is only $530 a year ahead on cash and Offer B pays your health premium, Offer B wins, and now you know by roughly how much. ### Why does the calculator ask for unpaid break hours? Because an unpaid meal break is time the job takes and does not pay for, and it is one of the biggest differences between an hourly offer and a salaried one. A 46-hour week with a 30-minute unpaid lunch five days a week is 48.5 hours committed for 46 hours of pay. The effective net hourly figure divides your take-home by hours committed, not hours paid, which is the number that matters when you are deciding what to do with your week. The [timesheet calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/timesheet-calculator/) handles break deductions across a full week of shifts. ## Related Tools - [Hourly to Salary Calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/hourly-to-salary-calculator/): Convert any hourly wage into weekly, biweekly, monthly, and annual salary based on the hours and weeks you work, with gross pay broken out by every common pay period. - [Prorated Salary Calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/prorated-salary-calculator/): Work out a partial paycheck when you start, leave, or take unpaid days mid-period. Get your prorated gross pay, daily rate, and a full-period comparison. - [Salary to Hourly Calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/salary-to-hourly-calculator/): Convert any annual, monthly, biweekly, or weekly salary into an equivalent hourly wage based on the hours and weeks you actually work. - [1099 vs W-2 Calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/1099-vs-w2-calculator/): Compare a W-2 salary offer with a 1099 contract at 2026 federal rates, then get the equivalent 1099 rate: the gross revenue that leaves you with the same take-home.