Why $30 an hour is not what you think it is
A recruiter offers you 30 an hour. A salaried role offers62,400. They sound identical, $30 times 2,080 hours (40 hours times 52 weeks) lands right at $62,400. So they're the same job, financially? Not even close.
The standard conversion assumes 2,080 paid hours a year. Salaried roles include paid time off inside that number. Take two weeks of vacation and the salaried worker still collects all $62,400. The hourly worker who takes the same two weeks unpaid actually works 2,000 hours and earns $60,000, a $2,400 gap that no offer letter mentions. Add the standard paid holidays a salaried role usually includes, and the real hourly equivalent of that $62,400 salary climbs above $30, not equal to it.
The conversions you should know by heart: multiply your hourly rate by 2,080 for a rough annual figure, or by 2,000 if you want a cleaner number that builds in two weeks off. Going the other way, divide an annual salary by 2,080 to find the hourly equivalent. A $100,000 salary works out to roughly $48 an hour. A $52,000 salary is exactly $25 an hour, which is why $52,000 shows up so often in job listings, it's a round hourly number in disguise.
Monthly matters too, because rent and most bills run monthly while paychecks often run biweekly. A $62,400 salary is $5,200 a month, but if you're paid every two weeks you get 26 checks of $2,400, not 24. Two months a year you collect a third paycheck, a quirk worth planning around. The calculator above converts in every direction and lets you adjust for the time off and benefits that the headline number hides.