Hourly or Salary?

Whether 'hourly' or 'salary' I suspect the correct answer is 'poorly'. 

micky wrote: hourly!!!! only saps and chumps and paperpushers do salary....   if I work overtime.. I get paid handsomely for it.. not have it expected to be part of my 'salaried' position.  That is where the big money is..

You may get paid handsomely for your overtime, as a salaried pen-pusher I get paid handsomely for a 35 hour week which more than compensates for the two or three weeks in the year that I turn in a 48 hour week, not because I need the extra money from overtime each and every week to make a living wage like many hourly-paid staff, nor because my employer is exploitative, but because occasionally the work requires a few extra hours effort to meet a deadline. 

I take the view that my annual salary is not for 1,820 hours work per year but for something like say 1,860, which is a 2% difference and while 2% of my salary may seem like a lot of money (and I assure you it is until the taxman runs away with 40% of it), it's actually less than 2% of what I take home each year. Sure, getting an extra 12 hours pay in my monthly pay-cheque for working an additional 3 hours each week in that month would be enough spare cash to pay for a slap-up meal in a fancy restaurant for me and my family, even after paying 40% income tax on it, but it's not a life-changing sum of money, nor will it pay for a holiday in the Bahama's.

Overtime payments are very much like the outmoded and divisive payment of tipping, deliberately paying low wages so employees have to claim welfare benefits and zero hour contracts. They are all means of controlling the workforce, making them work longer hours for less money. Because employers can count on hourly paid staff working those extra hours which they have to pay at time-an'a-half, they set the basic hourly-rate low to account for the extra payment. 

Consider it this way - you get paid $6.66 for a 35 hour week ($233) but your employer expects you to work 48 hours a week every week. This of course means he pays you $9.99 an hour for those extra 13 hours ($130) which sounds like a real bonus right? Because now your week's pay is 35 x $6.66 + 13 x $9.99 = $363. Yippee! and Handsome! ...except what that really means is your actual hourly rate is $363 ÷ 48 = $7.56. So by paying you 90¢ less each hour he has conned you into working 13 hours longer each week... 

Remember this: the people who set hourly rates do not pay themselves by the hour.