I was married with one child and was offered $ 200.00 monthly salary plus a two bedroom cottage,. all utilities, free use of a late model vehicle. I worked a minimum of 160 hours a month. I worked under this arrangement for two years and did fine.
One job I started in Oct. 1982, with Bell & Howell, I started at $5 per hour. I rented a room in a house, from a former supervisor. Drove an old car, but can't remember what kind it was. But, it was old. I made it ok, but sure would've like a much higher hourly rate. Unfortunately, didn't have the education and/or experience for anything better than a Stockroom Clerk, at the time.
I always made what I thought was a good annual income but never calculated an hourly rate. Some weeks I would work 2o hours and other times 60. Never kept track. I was always able to spend time with family, take vacations etc.
No; I was salaried and couldn't have cared less about hourly rate. I always worked more than 40 hours a week, however.
I was a salaried employee with a 35 hour work week. But at the end of my career, out of curiosity I did figure that the hourly rate was $24.87 an hour before I retired in January 1998.
Between my wife and I, we had a pretty hefty household income. But as we all learn, it is not what you make that counts, it is what you get to keep, and we got to keep a lot more of it here in South Carolina than we did in the Washington DC area.
When I was teaching college online as an adjunct professor, it was more like how much per hour we adjuncts were producing on the negative column of the page. The requirements we had meant that it took us about three times the amount of time to teach a class as it did for the same one in person -- and, on an adjunct's salary, there wasn't enough to spread to all of the hours. No, after the first time, I never counted the hourly rate.
Even before I met my wife in 2000, she was making much more than I ever did. But, then again, she has the two AA Degrees and a Bachelors. I only had high school and a couple of online classes. I've never been on salary. My lowest rate was $5.00 per hour, when I started at an electronics company in 1988. My highest rate was $14.75 after being with a senior healthcare company for four years. I never liked working more than 40 hours a week. Was never big into OT. I also like to have my weekends free to rodeo and party. In that order. LOL Currently my wife is on an nice $50 per hour rate, as well as getting in her full SS.
As a solopreneur, I had to calculate how much income I needed to be self supporting and set my hourly / client paid rates accordingly, with consideration for the hours in a week that I didn't have or didn't want clients coming in.