The arithmetic, with real numbers
Overtime is simple multiplication, which is exactly why it is easy to accept without checking. Take a $60,000 salary on a 2,080-hour year: base rate $28.85 an hour.
| Multiplier | Overtime hourly rate | One extra hour | One extra 4-hour evening |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.25× | $36.06 | $36.06 | $144.23 |
| 1.5× | $43.27 | $43.27 | $173.10 |
| 1.75× | $50.48 | $50.48 | $201.93 |
| 2× | $57.69 | $57.69 | $230.77 |
One extra evening a week at 1.5× is $173.10 — roughly $9,000 a year if it happens every week. That is a meaningful amount of money, and it is also 208 hours of your life, which is five full working weeks. Both statements are true at once. The point of seeing the number is to be able to hold both.
The overtime trap nobody mentions
Overtime raises your income per week and lowers your rate per hour, at the same time. This is not a paradox; it is just what happens when the numerator grows slower than the denominator.
A worked example. You earn $60,000 for 40 paid hours a week — $28.85 an hour. You start doing five extra hours a week at 1.5×. Your pay rises by $43.27 × 5 = $216 a week, about $11,250 a year. Your hours rise by 5 a week, from 40 to 45.
- New annual pay: $71,250
- New annual hours: 45 × 52 = 2,340
- New blended rate: $30.45 an hour
You are earning 19% more money for 12.5% more of your life, and your average hour is worth $1.60 more than it was. That can be a good deal — but only if you chose it deliberately. Most people never run the numbers, so they cannot tell whether the extra hours are buying them a holiday or just covering the tax.
Unpaid overtime is the expensive kind
The same arithmetic runs in reverse when overtime is unpaid. Thirty minutes of unpaid overtime a day is 2.5 hours a week, 130 hours a year — six and a half working days. On a $60,000 salary that is a real hourly rate of $27.15 instead of $28.85: a 6% pay cut you agreed to by staying late.
This is why the timer has an off switch for overtime. If your extra hours are unpaid, turn it off, and the counter will stop at clock-out the way your pay does. If you want to see the cost of unpaid overtime explicitly, log it for a month and run the total through hourly rate calculator, or the salary timer on the homepage.
Using the multiplier honestly
- Match your contract, not the law. Use the multiplier you are actually paid. If your employer pays 1.25× and the statutory rate is 1.5×, the calculator should show 1.25× — the gap is a separate conversation.
- Check your base rate first. A wrong base rate makes every overtime figure wrong. Confirm your paid hours per shift before trusting the multiplier.
- Watch the countdown switch. During overtime the ring stops advancing and the label changes to “Overtime for”, counting up instead of down. That is deliberate: the shift is over, and the clock is now measuring something else.
For rotas where overtime happens at 3am rather than 6pm, shift worker salary timer handles the midnight crossover properly.