About this tool
The Should I Take This Raise calculator turns a vibes-based career decision into a numerical comparison. Most people compare gross headline salaries and ignore the three forces that actually determine whether a job swap is worth it: marginal tax (your raise sits in your top bracket and gets eaten faster than your base), commute time (unpaid, unrecoverable, and the largest hidden cost in any office move), and flexibility loss (going from 2-day-in-office to 5-day-in-office removes optionality the spreadsheet cannot price).
The verdict combines all three into a 0-100 score with a traffic-light banner. STRONG YES (75+) means even with conservative assumptions the offer wins. BREAK EVEN (45-74) means it depends on factors the tool cannot see (career trajectory, manager, learning rate). DECLINE (under 45) means the headline number is misleading you and the math says stay.
The formula
The 0.5x commute weight comes from a 2018 NBER paper by Card, Cardoso, and Kline analysing Portuguese matched employer-employee data; workers behave as if one hour of commute costs them roughly half an hour of wages in lost utility. Empirical replications in the US and UK have landed in a similar 0.4-0.6 range.
How to use the calculator
- Pick your country and region. Sets your average effective tax rate. For US, region encodes whether you are in a high-tax state (CA, NY, NJ), national average, or no-state-tax (TX, FL, WA).
- Enter current job details. Gross annual salary, one-way commute in minutes (door to desk), days in office per week, flexibility score 1-10 (10 = fully flexible hours, ability to take a doctor's visit at 2pm without permission).
- Enter the new offer. Same fields, plus sign-on bonus, annual stock vest (RSU grant / 4 if it's a 4-year vest), and benefits delta in dollars (better health insurance, higher 401(k) match).
- Read the verdict banner. STRONG YES, BREAK EVEN, or DECLINE.
- Inspect the 4-tile dashboard: net delta after tax, true hourly pay on the new offer, hours lost to commute per year, and the 0-100 score.
- Stress-test the numbers. Increase commute by 15 minutes. Lower the flexibility score on the new job by 2 points. If the verdict flips easily, the offer is not as strong as it looks.
5 real-world scenarios
When to decline a raise (the unobvious cases)
- 20% gross raise that pulls you back to office 5 days from 2. Empirically the equivalent compensation hit on remote is 10-15% of net pay. Net wins less than half the headline number.
- Title bump with no equity and a 90-minute round-trip commute. 240 hours/year of commute at $40/hr net wage * 0.5 = $4,800/yr invisible cost.
- Lateral move with sign-on bonus inflating the year-1 number. Year 2 onwards the actual base is lower than your current total comp. Always annualise the sign-on.
- Offer with stock vesting on a cliff. If you leave or get laid off in year 1, you forfeit everything. Discount cliff stock heavily.
- Bigger team / smaller team that mismatches your career stage. Junior engineers grow faster on big teams. Senior engineers earn faster on small teams. Spreadsheet can't see this; ask your manager.
Frequently asked questions
How do I decide if a raise is worth it?
Compare three things: net-of-tax annual delta, hours of life consumed by the new commute vs the old, and any benefits or flexibility lost. A 15% gross raise that adds 90 minutes of daily commute and removes a remote-work option can be a pay cut on a per-hour basis once you price commute time at your current effective hourly wage.
What is true hourly compensation?
True hourly compensation = annual take-home pay divided by total time committed to the job each year (work hours plus commute hours). Most workers compute pay per work hour but ignore commute, which is unpaid and unrecoverable. A 2018 NBER paper (Card, Cardoso, Kline) values commute time at roughly 50% of net wage, meaning every hour driving to work costs you half an hour of wages in lost utility.
How much is one hour of commute worth in dollars?
Multiply your net hourly wage by 0.5 (the empirical commute-disutility coefficient). For someone earning $40/hour net, one hour of commute costs about $20 in lost utility. Two hours of round-trip commute per day, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, costs roughly $9,600 a year in invisible utility loss, before counting gas, transit fares, or vehicle wear.
Should I take a 20% raise if I lose remote work?
It depends on your current flexibility score and commute. Calculator rule of thumb: for every 5 days a week of return-to-office, you lose roughly 8 to 12% of effective compensation if your commute is 45+ minutes one-way. A 20% raise can still be net positive but it is closer to 8 to 12% in true terms. Below that delta, decline.
How do I value a sign-on bonus?
Sign-on bonuses are one-time and usually have clawback periods of 1 to 2 years. Annualise them across your expected tenure (a $20K sign-on across 4 years = $5K/year equivalent, before tax). Subtract any unvested RSU or 401(k) match you forfeit from your current employer. Net the two, then add to the offer salary for an apples-to-apples comparison.
Does the calculator account for state tax differences?
It uses average effective rates for each country (US, UK, IN, CA, AU, SG, AE, DE) and three US tax bands (high, mid, low). For state-level precision, run both jobs through the country-specific salary calculator linked from the related tools section.
What if my offer has stock comp (RSUs)?
Enter the annual vest value (4-year grant divided by 4). RSUs are taxed as income at vest, so use the gross-up value. Treat unvested cliff RSUs at the new employer with a 25% probability discount in year 1 (no-cliff failure) or apply your own conviction in the company.
Why does the verdict change if I increase commute by 30 minutes?
30 extra minutes one-way means 5 hours of commute per work week, or roughly 240 hours per year. At a $40/hour net wage and 0.5 disutility coefficient, that is $4,800 of invisible cost annually. Many raises smaller than $10K gross get eaten entirely by the time cost when commute jumps materially.
Is the calculator accurate for non-salary roles?
Yes for hourly roles, partially for commission. Enter annualised gross income. For commission-heavy roles, set both A and B to base + average commission. The tool assumes 48 working weeks per year (4 weeks PTO).
Are my inputs saved?
No. Inputs live in your browser tab only. Closing the tab discards them. Nothing is sent to a server.
Can I use this on my phone?
Yes. The layout is responsive at 480, 720, and 1024 px breakpoints. Tested on iOS Safari and Android Chrome.
How accurate are the tax estimates?
Country-level average effective rates are accurate to within 2-3 percentage points for incomes between $50K and $250K USD-equivalent. For sub-state-level precision, use the linked country salary calculator.
What does the verdict score mean?
0-44: DECLINE. The adjusted delta is negative or marginal. 45-74: BREAK EVEN. The offer wins on paper but only modestly; depends on factors the tool cannot see (career trajectory, manager, learning rate). 75-100: STRONG YES. Even with conservative assumptions, the new offer wins.