Prices in work hours · United States
How many hours of work is an iPhone 17 in the United States?
At the US federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, an iPhone 17 costs 128.1 hours of work. That is about 16.0 workdays.
iPhone 17: $929. 256GB, unlocked. Apple shows $899 if you activate it with a US carrier at purchase..
Minimum wage: $7.25 an hour (federal minimum wage, from July 24, 2009).
The maths
$929 ÷ $7.25 an hour = 128.1 hours
With 8-hour workdays, that is 16.0 workdays, or about 0.7 months of full-time work. These figures are before tax.
At other pay levels
| Pay | Work hours | Workdays |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum wage ($7.25/hr) | 128.1 | 16.0 |
| $15 an hour | 61.9 | 7.7 |
| $25 an hour | 37.2 | 4.6 |
| $60,000 a year | 32.2 | 4.0 |
| $100,000 a year | 19.3 | 2.4 |
Yearly and monthly salaries are converted using 2,080 hours a year.
After tax
If you keep 80% of your pay after deductions, every figure above is 25% higher. At minimum wage that means 160.2 hours instead of 128.1.
Saving up for it
Setting aside 10% of a minimum-wage day ($5.80) every workday, it takes 160 workdays to save $929. That is roughly 0.6 years.
Ways to make it cost fewer hours
- Buy last year's model. Older models usually get cheaper when a new one comes out, and they keep getting updates for years.
- Look at certified refurbished phones, which come with a warranty.
- Trade in or sell your current phone to cut the price.
- Keep your next phone longer. A phone kept for four years costs half as many hours per year as one kept for two.
See also
- Netflix in the United States
- Spotify Premium in the United States
- Minimum wage in the United States: what it buys