Salary increase calculator

$
%
%
years
Your new salary
$64,790

$2,790 more, or $232 a month

After inflation1.46%
Real gain$903
Over 20 years$87,526
$80.6k$161k$242k$323k11020304020 yrs: $87,526$80.6k$161k$242k$323k115304020 yrs: $87,526

Everything the rise adds, year on year, against a career that did not get it. It curves upward because every later percentage lands on the higher base.

A 4.50% rise on $62,000 is $2,790, taking it to $64,790 - $232 more a month. Against 3.00% inflation the real rise is 1.46%, worth $903 in what it buys. Carried forward, the same raise adds $87,526 over 20 years.

How to use this, and the parts people get wrong
  • Enter the old and new salary; the tool does percent, cash and the long run from those two.
  • The career figure compounds the gap to retirement, which is why a small raise carries a six-figure lifetime value.
  • The inflation toggle turns the raise from nominal into real - the honest version of the number.

On paper against in the shops

On paper the rise is $2,790. After 3.00% inflation what it actually buys is $903, a real 1.46%. Anything at or below the inflation rate leaves you no better off.

$64,790the new salary
1.46%the rise after inflation
$87,526what it adds over 20 years

What it is worth by then

The salary the rise leads to, and everything it has added along the way.

YearsSalaryRise addsMultiple
1$64,790$2,7901.0x
2$67,706$5,7062.0x
3$70,752$8,7523.1x
5$77,263$15,2635.5x
10$96,284$34,28412.3x
15$119,988$57,98820.8x
20$149,526$87,52631.4x
25$186,337$124,33744.6x
30$232,210$170,21061.0x
40$360,615$298,615107.0x

Questions people ask

How do I calculate a salary increase?
Multiply the salary by one plus the percentage. $62,000 with a 4.50% rise becomes $64,790, which is $2,790 more a year or $232 a month.
What is a real pay rise?
The rise after inflation, and it is the one that changes what you can buy. Divide one plus the rise by one plus inflation: 4.50% against 3.00% leaves a real 1.46%. A rise below the inflation rate is a pay cut in everything but name.
Why is a small rise worth so much more than it looks?
Because every later percentage applies to the higher base, so the gap compounds rather than staying flat. On these figures the rise is $2,790 in year one and $87,526 cumulatively by year 20 - about 31 times the first-year figure.
Is this before or after tax?
Before. Tax on a rise depends on your country, your band and often on what else you earn, so applying a single rate would be wrong for most readers. The percentage itself is unaffected either way.
What inflation figure should I use?
The one your own spending faces, which need not be the headline rate. Rent, energy and food move at their own speed, so if your budget is weighted toward them, the honest figure is higher than the published average.

Method and sources

  • Standard percentage and compound-growth arithmeticRatio of nominal to inflation for the real rise
The calculation

The new salary is the old one times one plus the rise. The real rise is one plus the rise divided by one plus inflation, minus one - a ratio, not a subtraction, which is why 4% against 3% is 0.97% rather than 1%. The cumulative figure runs two salaries forward side by side, one that took the rise and one that did not, applying the same percentage to both afterwards, and sums the gap.

What these figures do not cover
  • Tax is not applied; the rise is gross, as is the salary.
  • Later rises are assumed to be the same percentage on both paths, which is what isolates the value of THIS rise rather than of a career.
  • Inflation is held constant across the period, which no real inflation rate has ever been.
  • Bonuses, pension contributions and benefits that scale with salary are not counted, so the cumulative figure is a floor rather than a ceiling.

Last updated August 2026.

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