Total Compensation Explained

Your salary is about seventy percent of what your job costs. The rest is benefits: health insurance, retirement match, payroll taxes, leave and insurance. In the United States, employer costs for civilian workers average in the mid forties of dollars per hour worked, with over ten dollars of that in benefits.

That reframes offers. A job paying 5,000 more with a 6,000 family premium and no retirement match is a pay cut. Value equity at what you would pay to hold it, discounting for vesting and price risk.

Price unpaid leave as salary divided by workdays. Compare packages, not paychecks..