Guides

Understand what your job really pays

Practical guides to comparing jobs by what they pay for each hour of your life, and city-by-city figures for 2026, all built from the same sourced data as the calculator.

Guides

• Is going back to the office worth it? What it costs per hourWhat a return-to-office mandate does to your pay per hour, city by city, and the raise that would make up for it.
• Remote or office? How to compare two job offers by real hourly wageWhy two offers with the same salary can pay very differently, and how to compare them properly.
• The time tax: the hours your job takes but doesn't pay forHow unpaid overtime and commuting add up over a year, with figures for eight cities.
• Is a raise worth a longer commute?Work out the salary a job with a longer commute has to pay just to leave you even.

City guides

What a typical job pays per hour in each city, by transit, by car, hybrid and fully remote.

• New YorkOffice by transit $22.96/hr · remote $29.58/hr
• San FranciscoOffice by transit $27.19/hr · remote $34.48/hr
• ChicagoOffice by transit $21.14/hr · remote $26.93/hr
• AustinOffice by transit $23.24/hr · remote $29.02/hr
• the USOffice by transit $21.63/hr · remote $27.34/hr
• TorontoOffice by transit $20.72/hr · remote $27.60/hr
• VancouverOffice by transit $20.09/hr · remote $27.50/hr
• LondonOffice by transit £14.83/hr · remote £19.76/hr

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