Pay Raise Calculator

How to calculate a pay raise

A raise can be described three ways: as a percentage, as a dollar amount, or as the new pay figure. Each one converts to the others with a line of arithmetic.

A percentage raise applies to the hourly rate or the salary itself, so it is the same percentage whichever way you are paid. Hours only matter when you turn an hourly rate into a yearly figure, or a salary into an hourly equivalent.

Worked examples

What common raises are worth

Yearly increase, with the matching change per paycheck for someone paid every two weeks (26 paychecks a year). Gross amounts, before tax.

For hourly pay, a raise per hour turns into weekly and yearly amounts like this, at 40 hours a week and 52 paid weeks a year:

Twice a month vs every two weeks

These sound alike and are not. Paid twice a month (semimonthly), you get 24 paychecks a year, usually on fixed dates such as the 15th and the last day. Paid every two weeks (biweekly), you get 26, always on the same weekday.

The same yearly raise is split into more pieces when you are paid every two weeks, so each paycheck rises by a little less: on the $3,000 example above, $125.00 per paycheck twice a month against $115.38 every two weeks. Over the year the totals match: in a typical year, two months contain a third biweekly payday.

A year has 52 weeks and one or two extra days, so the biweekly calendar slowly drifts, and roughly once every 11 years a calendar year contains 27 biweekly paydays. The calculator divides by 26, the usual count, and labels every per-paycheck figure as an average.

Does your raise beat inflation?

A raise only increases what you can buy if your pay rises faster than prices. To compare the two, divide rather than subtract:

With a 5% raise and 3% inflation: 1.05 ÷ 1.03 − 1 = 1.94%, a little under the 2% you would get by subtracting. With a 2% raise and 3.5% inflation, the result is -1.45%: the paycheck is bigger, but it buys less.

The calculator has an optional inflation section where you enter the rate yourself, for the period your raise covers. It deliberately has no built-in figure, which would be out of date within a month. In the U.S., the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the Consumer Price Index monthly, including the 12-month change.

Questions people ask

How do I calculate my percentage pay increase?

Subtract your old pay from your new pay, divide by your old pay, and multiply by 100. Going from $52,000 to $55,000 is $3,000 ÷ $52,000 × 100 = 5.77%. The same formula works for hourly rates.

How much is a 3% raise?

It depends on your pay. On $50,000 a year, 3% is $1,500 a year, or $57.69 per two-week paycheck. On $25.00 an hour, it is $0.75 an hour, which comes to $1,560 a year at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks.

How do I turn an hourly raise into a yearly amount?

Multiply the raise per hour by the hours you are paid in a year. Full time at 40 hours for 52 weeks is 2,080 hours, so each $1.00 an hour adds $2,080 a year. If you work 30 hours, or have unpaid weeks, change the hours and weeks in the calculator and the yearly figure follows.

Why is my paycheck increase smaller than the raise?

The calculator shows gross pay, before anything is taken out. Your take-home increase is smaller because income tax, payroll taxes and percentage-based deductions, such as retirement contributions set as a share of pay, also rise with your pay. How much smaller depends on where you live and what you have deducted, which is why this page does not guess at it.

Can a raise lower my take-home pay by moving me into a higher tax bracket?

Not through U.S. federal income tax brackets alone. Brackets are marginal: only the dollars above a threshold are taxed at the higher rate, so the pay you already had is taxed the same way as before. The exceptions are benefits and credits that phase out as income rises, which can take back part of a raise for people near those limits.

Is a percentage raise or a flat dollar raise better?

Neither, once you convert one into the other. A flat raise is worth a larger percentage to someone paid less: $2,000 is 5% on $40,000 but 2.5% on $80,000. To compare two offers described differently, enter each in the calculator and compare the new pay.

What if my raise comes with a bonus?

Enter only the change to your base pay. One-off bonuses, commission, benefits and overtime premiums are not included, because they vary from year to year and are paid on their own schedules.

What if the raise is a pay cut?

Enter it with a minus sign (for example, -5 in Percent mode), or choose “New pay” and enter the lower figure. The results show the decrease per year and per paycheck the same way.

What the calculator assumes

• All figures are gross pay, before taxes, deductions and benefits.
• Per-paycheck figures split yearly pay evenly across 12, 24, 26 or 52 periods. They are averages, not a prediction of any single paycheck.
• Hourly pay becomes yearly pay at the hours and paid weeks you set (40 and 52 unless you change them). Overtime premiums are not included.
• For a salary, hours and weeks only affect the hourly equivalent.
• Inflation is a rate you enter. The calculator has no built-in or live inflation data.
• Numbers are rounded to the cent (and percentages to two decimal places) for display only.
• The pay conversation draft uses only the figures you entered. Everything else is a [bracketed] placeholder for you to fill in or delete.
• Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere. Reloading the page clears it.

For general information only. Not tax, legal or financial advice.

When the raise isn't the whole answer

A raise moves your pay within the job you have. If the gap between your raise and your target is wide, it can help to look at more than one route to the number: a promotion, a move to another employer, or a direction that builds on what you already do well. Career Leap, our free career assessment, maps three directions from your skills, experience and constraints, each with estimated income ranges, so you can set them beside the raise you have and the target you have in mind. If a promotion is the route, Leap Up maps what your next role would take.

If you are weighing a bigger change, the career change calculator runs the runway math, and how to change careers without starting over covers the routes that keep your income. And if a good salary is the main thing keeping you in a job you have outgrown, our piece on golden handcuffs is about exactly that.

Written by Jon Miksis, founder of Make the Leap. The formulas here are standard arithmetic, and every example on this page is calculated by the same code that runs the calculator, so any figure can be checked by hand.