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Comparing Job Offers: Salary Is One Line of a Ten-Line Ledger

The higher salary loses surprisingly often once health premiums, retirement matching, equity, state taxes, and commute costs enter the ledger. A structured way to compare two offers on total compensation rather than one headline.

Published · Paycheck & Income · 2 min read

Two offers: $95,000 and $88,000. The first is bigger. Whether it is better depends on nine other lines, and it is entirely ordinary for the $88,000 offer to win by thousands once they are filled in. The comparison is not hard — it is just never printed on the offer letter.

The ledger

  • Take-home pay, not salary. Different states, city taxes, and pre-tax benefit costs mean two equal salaries can net hundreds apart per month. Compute both offers' actual paychecks first.
  • Health insurance. Premium share varies enormously — $50 a month versus $400 for family coverage is a $4,200 annual swing, before deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, which deserve a look if anyone in the family uses regular care.
  • Retirement match. A 6% match against a 3% match on a $90,000 salary is $2,700 a year of compensation, compounding. Vesting schedules matter too: a match that vests over four years is worth less to someone likely to leave in two.
  • Bonus and equity, discounted. A "target 10% bonus" is not salary — ask about the last three years' actual payouts. Equity in a public company has a price; startup equity deserves a steep personal discount.
  • Paid time off. Each week of PTO is roughly 2% of salary in paid non-work. A 15-day against a 25-day policy is a real gap.
  • The commute. Twenty extra minutes each way is about 160 hours a year — two working months of unpaid time — plus vehicle or transit cost. Remote and hybrid arrangements carry cash value.

Make it one number, then re-add judgment

Reduce each offer to annual take-home plus employer retirement dollars plus benefit value minus commuting cost. That single figure settles the money question. Then — and only then — weigh the unquantifiables: growth, stability, the manager, the work itself. Money clarity first prevents the common error of letting a $7,000 headline gap decide against $9,000 of quieter value.

The take-home pay calculator nets out each offer's actual paycheck (run it once per offer, with each state and benefit load), the match calculator prices the retirement line, and the employer cost calculator shows the compensation picture from the other side of the table — useful context for any negotiation.

Run your own numbers

Take-Home Pay Calculator See what is left of a paycheck after federal tax, Social Security, Medicare, benefits, and retirement contributions. Taxes State Income Tax Calculator Estimate 2026 state income tax and take-home pay for any published state, with the federal and payroll tax alongside it. Taxes 401(k) Employer Match Calculator Work out what your employer will match, what it takes to capture all of it, and what leaving some on the table costs by retirement. Savings Employer Cost Calculator The full annual cost of employing someone: payroll taxes, insurance, retirement, overhead, and the cost per productive hour. Paycheck

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This article is general education, not tax, legal, investment, or financial advice. Figures used in examples are illustrations, not quotes or predictions. For decisions that depend on your full situation, talk to a qualified professional.