Lets just estimate that he and I both make $90,000. Its not exact but close enough for discussion. He worked 60 hours and I worked 40 hours. On an hourly basis he made about $30/hour and I made about $45/hr. Our gross income was the same but on an hourly basis I was making 50% more than he was. Thankfully my friend has since moved to a better position at work and now he works a lot closer to a regular 40 hour /week job.
Lets look at another example. Say two recent college graduates are pursuing different careers. One has just finished a math degree and is going to start as a teacher. They are making $35,000 a year. The other person has an engineering degree and their starting pay is $55,000. The teacher works 8 hour shifts for 189 days a year or 1,512 hours a year. The engineer works 8 hour shifts 240 days for 1,920 hours / year. On an hourly basis the teacher is making $23.15 /hr and the engineer is pulling in $28.65/hr. Clearly the engineer is doing better. But lets look at the situation if the engineer works 50 hour weeks rather than 40 hour weeks. That would result in a total of 2,400 hours a year and their $55,000 salary would give them an hourly rate of $22.92 /hr. In this situation the engineer is making less per hour than the teacher.
Teacher | Engr at 40hr | Engr at 50hr | |
Salary | $35,000 | $55,000 | $55,000 |
Hours worked | 1,512 | 1,920 | 2,400 |
Hourly rate | $23.15 | $28.65 | $22.92 |
Of course its also possible that the teacher could be working 10 hour days and the engineer might work 8 hour days. There is also an advantage to having a higher gross salary as it will provide a higher standard of living. But does a higher overall pay come at the expense of high stress and burning yourself out spending most of your days at work?
Next time you're looking at a job make sure to figure out how the hourly pay would look.