Personal Finance · Unit 1: Earning Money and Careers · Complete Toolkit
Hourly vs Salary: Which Job Actually Pays More?
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Fits: Personal Finance, Financial Literacy, Economics · grades 9-12 · 1-2 class periods
What students do
- Calculate overtime pay at time-and-a-half for hours worked beyond 40 in a week
- Annualize an hourly wage and convert a salary back to an hourly equivalent
- Read a grouped bar chart to find where hourly pay overtakes a flat salary
- Compare two real job offers and decide which one actually pays more
What it covers
- The difference between an hourly wage and a salary, and how each becomes a paycheck
- Overtime, time-and-a-half, and the 40-hour threshold that triggers it
- Exempt vs non-exempt status and why it changes who earns overtime
- The math for putting an hourly job and a salary on the same yearly footing
Learning targets
- Explain the difference between an hourly wage and a salary and how each one turns into a paycheck
- Calculate overtime pay using the time-and-a-half rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a week
- Annualize an hourly wage to estimate yearly pay and convert a salary back to an hourly equivalent
- Compare two real job offers - one hourly, one salaried - and decide which one actually pays more based on hours worked
From one teacher to another
Two job offers that look almost identical on paper hide the real trap I want students to run into. They annualize an hourly wage, price out overtime at time-and-a-half, and watch the "obvious" higher number lose once the hours change. By the end they're running the math themselves instead of just picking the bigger paycheck.
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