Lost Wage Calculator

260 approximates the number of actual working days in a year after removing weekends (52 weeks times 5 workdays), which is the standard convention for converting an annual salary into a per-day figure for missed full days. The hourly rate instead divides by your actual normal weekly hours times 52 weeks, since hourly pay depends on your specific schedule rather than a generic five-day workweek assumption.

The calculator subtracts a negative value from your total wage loss in that case, since it interprets the reduced-schedule period as time you actually worked more than usual rather than less. This usually means the inputs don't describe a genuine reduced-hours recovery period, and it's worth re-entering the figures correctly rather than trusting a total that's been reduced by a phantom gain.

Not directly — this tool assumes a stable annual salary and a fixed weekly hour schedule, which doesn't fit self-employed income that can vary substantially month to month based on client work, seasonal demand, or business expenses. Self-employed claimants typically need to document lost income using tax returns, profit-and-loss statements, and business records rather than a simple salary-to-daily-rate conversion.

Missing work often means losing employer contributions to health insurance premiums, retirement plan matching, and other benefits alongside the paycheck itself, and those amounts are real economic losses that a base salary figure alone wouldn't capture. Including a reasonable benefits value percentage, commonly cited in the 20-30% range of total compensation, gives insurers and courts a more complete picture of the actual financial harm.

Pay stubs, W-2 forms, and a signed letter from your employer confirming your salary, normal hours, and the actual days or reduced hours you missed are the standard proof insurers expect for a wage loss claim. Without that paper trail, even an accurately calculated lost wage figure is likely to be challenged or discounted during settlement negotiations.