Kept Hour

Job page · defaults, not a survey

A journalist at $55,000 and 45 hours keeps about $18.33 an hour.

That uses 50 working weeks and a 25% combined tax load. Gross hourly is $24.44. Hours above 40, if this week is typical, add up to 250 evenings-worth a year. If your offer is different, the calculator is the page.

—Kept hour, after tax
—Kept hour after commute is counted as work
—Gross hourly, before tax
—Evening hours already sold (over 40 / week)
—Commute, valued at your kept hour
—Meetings, valued at your kept hour, per year
—Take-home, same tax load

The calculator stays free. The $39 sheet is a human check of the same numbers, not a locked file.

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How to read a journalist offer

Title inflation is common and useless. Ask for the week: on-call, charting, prep, Slack after dinner, travel that is not on the clock. Put that number in hours, not the number on the poster.

Then price one concession. A 30-minute daily standup, 5 days, 50 weeks, is 125 hours. At this kept hour that is about $2,292. You do not have to say it that way in the room. You should know it before you say yes.

Compare cities on the city pages. A higher salary in a higher-tax, higher-rent city can lose to a quieter week somewhere cheaper. Rent on those pages is a planning range for a one-bedroom, not your lease.

Nearby roles: Truck driver · Restaurant manager · Chef.

Want this as a Monday number instead of a tab you forget? The brief is one email, one figure, no funnel theater.