Raise news doesn't always arrive as a tidy percentage in a review letter. For hourly workers, it's often just a new number on a schedule — "you're at $20.60 now" — with the percentage left for you to figure out, or a manager mentioning a raise percentage with no easy way to see what it means for your actual rate. This calculator handles the math instantly, in either direction: annual salary or hourly wage, whichever matches your paycheck.
Underneath, it's the exact same formula either way — new pay equals current pay times (1 + raise% ÷ 100). A 3% raise is 3% whether it's applied to $20 an hour or $60,000 a year. What differs is precision: rounding an hourly rate to the nearest whole dollar (the way a salary calculator would) turns a real $20.60/hr into a meaningless "$21/hr," so this calculator's hourly mode always shows cents.
Because hourly pay doesn't map directly onto an annual figure, this calculator also annualizes the raise using the standard full-time convention of 2,080 hours a year (40 hours × 52 weeks) — useful for comparing an hourly raise to a salaried offer, budgeting against annual expenses, or just seeing the bigger picture behind a few cents an hour.
This page is built for speed: no review-meeting backstory, no framing — just enter your rate and percentage, in whichever unit your paycheck actually uses, and get the answer. For the fuller review-conversation framing (typical raise bands, what a given percentage signals), see the Pay Raise Calculator; for the specific, very common 3% figure explained on its own, see How Much Is a 3% Raise.
Hourly pay also interacts with overtime and part-time schedules in ways an annual salary doesn't — a raise on an hourly rate changes the value of every extra hour worked, including any overtime premium calculated from that base rate. If your hours vary week to week, the annualized figure this calculator shows (based on a standard 2,080-hour full-time year) is a reference point, not a guarantee — your actual annual raise impact scales with the hours you actually work, which this calculator can't know in advance.
Frequently asked questions
How much is a 3% raise per hour?
On a $20.00/hr wage, a 3% raise takes you to $20.60/hr — $0.60/hr more, or about $1,248 more a year at a standard 2,080-hour work year. Switch to annual mode above if your pay is a yearly salary instead.
Do hourly raises work the same as salary raises?
Yes — the underlying math is identical: new pay = current pay × (1 + raise% ÷ 100). Only the unit changes. A 3% raise is 3% whether you're paid $20/hour or $60,000/year; this calculator's hourly mode just formats the result to cents-precision and adds the annualized dollar impact, since a whole-dollar rounding on an hourly rate loses real precision.
What's a 3% raise on $15/hour?
A 3% raise on $15.00/hr is $15.45/hr — $0.45/hr more, or about $936 more a year at 2,080 hours.
What's a 3% raise on $30/hour?
A 3% raise on $30.00/hr is $30.90/hr — $0.90/hr more, or about $1,872 more a year at 2,080 hours.
What's the difference between a raise and overtime pay?
A raise permanently increases your base hourly rate going forward, changing every future paycheck. Overtime is a temporary premium — commonly 1.5× your base rate — paid only for hours worked beyond a threshold in a given week, and it stops as soon as the extra hours do. A raise also increases the dollar value of any future overtime, since overtime premiums are calculated from the base rate this calculator shows.
Worked examples
Worked example 1
The $20/hr quick-lookup case
$20.00/hr wage, 3% raise — the default hourly scenario.
New pay
$21
More per year
$1
A 3% raise on a $20.00/hr wage lands at $20.60/hr — the same math as any salary raise, just formatted to cents precision for hourly pay.
Worked example 2
The $30/hr case, same percentage
$30.00/hr wage, 3% raise — a higher hourly base.
New pay
$31
More per year
$1
At $30.00/hr, the same 3% raise is worth $0.90/hr more — proportionally identical to the $20/hr case, scaled to the higher base.
What affects the result
Which unit your pay is in
Doesn't change the math at all — annual and hourly raises use the identical percentage formula. It only changes how the result is best displayed (whole dollars vs. cents-precision).
The raise percentage
Same as any raise calculation — the percentage is the single biggest driver of the outcome.
Hours-per-year assumption for annualizing
Converting an hourly raise to an annual figure uses the standard 2,080-hour full-time year — actual annual impact scales directly with hours actually worked.
More questions answered
Why does this calculator show cents for hourly wages?
Rounding an hourly wage to the nearest whole dollar loses real precision — $20.60/hr rounded to "$21/hr" misrepresents the actual raise. This calculator always keeps two decimal places for hourly figures.
Model assumptions & disclosures
Gross pay only — not take-home pay. Every figure on this page is gross (pre-tax) salary or wage. This calculator never computes net pay, withholding, or take-home amounts — those depend on your tax bracket, filing status, benefits elections, and location, none of which are modeled here.
Inflation is your estimate, not live data. This calculator never fetches a current or official inflation figure. The inflation rate is a user-editable input with a dated, static default — enter your own assumption, informed by your own situation or a published figure you trust, for the most relevant result.
Multi-year projections are a planning baseline, not a guarantee. Projections assume a perfectly steady annual raise rate (plus any promotion you explicitly model). Real careers rarely move in a straight line — raises can pause, accelerate, or be interrupted by a job change. Treat projected figures as a reference point for planning, not a prediction of your actual future pay.
Employer cost-of-living adjustments are not the Social Security COLA. The Cost of Living Raise Calculator models an employer-granted percentage you enter yourself. It is unrelated to, and does not use, the separate federally published Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, which applies to benefit payments under a different program entirely.
Not financial or career advice. This calculator provides illustrative estimates based on the inputs you enter. It does not account for your complete financial picture, your specific employer's policies, or your individual circumstances. Consult your employer's HR team, a financial advisor, or a tax professional before making decisions based on these figures.