$15 an Hour Is How Much a Year?

How to turn an hourly wage into a yearly salary

An hourly wage becomes a salary with one multiplication. Take the rate, multiply by the hours you work in a week, then multiply by the number of paid weeks in the year. For a standard full-time schedule that is 40 hours times 52 weeks, which is 2,080 hours, and 2,080 times $15 is $31,200.

There is a fast approximation worth knowing. Multiply the hourly rate by 2,000 and you get a rough annual figure, because a full-time year is close to 2,000 hours once you allow for unpaid breaks. At $15 that gives $30,000 against the exact $31,200, which is close enough for a quick comparison at a job interview.

Two details change the answer. The first is paid weeks. A job that pays for 50 weeks because of a two-week unpaid break pays $30,000 instead of $31,200. The second is paid leave. A job with paid holidays and vacation still counts those weeks, so the 52-week figure holds even though you are not at work every week.

The calculator above handles all of it. Put in the rate, the hours and the paid weeks, and it returns the annual, monthly, weekly, biweekly and daily figures in one pass.

What $15 an hour pays full time, part time and overtime

Part-time work is common at this rate, and the annual figure moves a lot with hours. Here is what $15 an hour pays across a full year at different schedules.

The jump from 30 hours to 40 hours is worth $7,800 a year, which is a bigger change than most people expect from ten extra hours a week. Going from 20 hours to full time nearly doubles the annual figure, from $15,600 to $31,200.

Overtime is the other lever. At $15 an hour, time and a half is $22.50, and five overtime hours a week for a year adds $5,850 before tax. Not every job offers overtime, and some employers limit it, but when it is available it moves the annual number faster than a raise does.

What $15 an hour is after taxes

Federal income tax and payroll tax both come out before the money reaches you. For 2026 a single filer gets a $16,100 standard deduction, and the first bracket is 10% up to $12,400 of taxable income, then 12% up to $50,400.

On $31,200 of gross pay the math runs like this. Taxable income is $31,200 minus $16,100, or $15,100. Federal income tax is $1,240 on the first $12,400 plus 12% of the remaining $2,700, which is $324, for a total of $1,564. Payroll tax is 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare, a combined 7.65%, which is $2,387. Take-home pay is $31,200 minus both, or $27,249.

That works out to about $2,271 a month and an effective federal tax rate of 12.7% once you count both taxes. The IRS inflation adjustments for tax year 2026 list the brackets and the standard deduction, and the Department of Labor minimum wage page covers the federal floor this rate sits above.

Part time changes the picture in a useful way. At 20 hours a week the gross is $15,600, which is below the $16,100 standard deduction. A single filer with no other income owes no federal income tax at all on that, though payroll tax of $1,193 still comes out, leaving about $14,407.

What $15 an hour buys each month

Take-home of $27,249 is $2,271 a month. The standard budgeting guide is to keep rent at or below 30% of take-home pay, which at this rate means about $681 a month for housing. That is below the median rent for a one-bedroom in most large metros, and it is comfortable in a small town or a low-cost region.

The same figure looks different depending on who is supported. A single adult with no dependents can cover the basics on $2,271 a month in many parts of the country. A parent supporting a child on the same wage is working with a much tighter margin, which is why the earned income credit and the child tax credit matter so much at this income level.

For context, the median full-time worker earned $1,251 a week in the second quarter of 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is about $31.28 an hour, so $15 an hour sits at roughly 48 percent of the median full-time wage. It is also just over twice the $7.25 federal minimum wage.

$15 an hour against the minimum wage

The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since 2009, and many states set a higher floor of their own. Where a state rate and the federal rate both apply, the worker gets the higher of the two. At $15 an hour you are above both the federal floor and most state floors, which puts the rate in the middle of the US wage distribution rather than at the bottom.

That gap matters for how a $15 offer should feel. In a state still paying the federal $7.25, $15 an hour is more than double the legal minimum and is a strong offer for entry-level work. In a state where the minimum has already climbed past $15, the same rate is a starting point rather than a premium, and the annual figure is much less impressive against local rents.

State income tax is the other local variable. A single filer in a state with no income tax keeps the full $27,249. Add a flat 3.07% state tax and take-home drops to about $26,291, and at a flat 5% it falls to about $25,689. That is a spread of $1,560 a year for the same job, which is worth checking before you compare two offers in different states.

What this estimate leaves out

The calculator estimates federal income tax and payroll tax for a single filer who takes the standard deduction. Four things can move the real number.

Withholding is not the same as tax owed. Your W-4 determines how much comes out of each check, and you settle up when you file. If you claim dependents or have a second job, the withholding on this job may not match your final tax bill.

Credits and deductions are not modelled. The earned income credit, the child tax credit, student loan interest and itemised deductions all change what you owe, and several of them are worth more at this income level than at a higher one. A part-year worker who earns under $16,100 owes no federal income tax at all.

State and local tax is not included unless you enter a rate. Some states have progressive brackets, some tax only investment income, and a few cities add their own income tax on top. Your effective rate depends on your whole return, not just this job.

Finally, this is gross pay against tax, nothing more. It does not account for a 401k contribution, health insurance premiums, union dues or a commuter benefit, all of which lower take-home further. It also does not judge whether $15 an hour is the right rate for the work, which depends on your market and your experience.

Treat this as an estimate rather than tax advice, and remember that rates change without notice. Have a qualified tax professional check your own numbers before you rely on them.