Turn a $52,000 salary into an hourly wage

Question

A full-time year is about 40 hours 	imes 52 weeks = 2{,}080 working hours. Solve in your head. What hourly wage does a \52,000 salary correspond to? Aim: under 15 seconds.

Accepted Answer

Divide by the exact 2{,}080 hours: \frac{52{,}000}{2{,}080} = 25 \; 	ext{per hour.} The mental shortcut: a year is roughly 2{,}000 hours, so hourly \approx salary in thousands, halved. Here 	frac{52}{2} = 26, a hair high because the real hour count is 2{,}080, not 2{,}000. Takeaway. "Halve the salary in thousands" converts yearly to hourly in one step (\52	ext{k} 	o \sim\26/hr, exact \25). Going the other way, an hourly wage times two, in thousands, is the annual salary: \30/hr 	o \sim\60	ext{k}.

Turn a $52,000 salary into an hourly wage

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