# How to calculate your hourly wage

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(Photo Illustration by Alex Wong/News/Getty Images)

On December 1, if you're a salaried employee who makes less than \$47,476 a year, there's a good chance that your pay structure will change. That's because on that day a new federal rule goes into effect that will change the minimum amount that employers can pay salaried employees without giving them overtime.

Employers have choices. If your salary is below \$47,476 a year or \$913 a week, they can increase your salary to that level and keep you as a salaried employee who is exempt from overtime. They can also re-classify you as hourly and pay you overtime for any hours you work over 40 hours a week. Another option is to keep you as a salaried employee, not give you a raise, and pay you overtime if you work over 40 hours a week.

Kerry Lear, Director of HR Content at Mammoth HR in Portland also talks about a variation on re-classifying and paying hourly: employers could make you hourly and change your hourly wage to reflect the number of hours they want you to work a week. This means that if you are now salaried and expected to work over 40 hours a week, they will factor overtime pay--time and a half--into your hourly salary so they aren't paying you more and you are working the same number of hours.

So, how do you find out how much you would make hourly if your employer chose this option? You use algebra!

Here's the equation:

40w + ([hours over 40]w X 1.5)=[your salary]/52

Step 1: Figure out how many hours you would be getting paid for.

In this equation, w is the unknown hourly wage. For 40 hours, you will be paid w. Hours over 40, you will be paid w X 1.5 (time and a half).

So, if you work 50 hours a week that means you work 40 hours at regular pay and 10 at time and a half and that would look like this: 40w + (10w X 1.5) or 40w + 15w or 55w.

Step 2: Figure out your weekly wage.

This one's easy. Take your annual salary and divide it by 52, the number of weeks a year. So, if you make \$30,000 a year, your weekly salary is \$576.92.

Step 3: Solve for w.

So, here's what you have now, in the above example:

55w = \$576.92 or w = \$576.92/55 or w = \$10.49

So, if your boss wanted to keep you working the same amount of hours at the same cost, you would be making \$10.49 an hour.

Of course, then you would also be taking a pay cut if, for a week, you worked less than 50 hours.

In the coming weeks, I'll be writing more about this new rule. Do you have specific questions you want answered? Send them to me!

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052
lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker
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