Job Offers Calculator

When you're weighing two job offers, the number everyone fixates on — the salary — is a poor predictor of which one leaves you better off. Four hidden levers can swamp a salary difference: federal taxes (a raise into a higher bracket keeps less of each marginal dollar), the employer 401(k) match (free money the salary line never mentions, often 3–6% of pay), your share of the health-insurance premium (which can differ by thousands a year between employers), and the cost of living where the job is (the same paycheck buys far less in an expensive metro than a cheap one). This lesson runs each offer from its headline salary down to a cost-of-living-adjusted real value: take-home pay after tax, minus your premium, plus the match, then scaled for purchasing power. The simulator draws each offer as a bar — a faint outline for the headline salary and a solid bar for what it's really worth — so you can watch the ranking flip when the lower-salary offer wins. The takeaway: never accept or reject an offer on the salary alone. Build the all-in number, because the bigger paycheck and the better offer are often not the same job.

Free and interactive — no sign-up, nothing to install. Read the full lesson for the plain-language explanation.