Comparing Line Rates

by Carol Reese

Here are the calculations I made when I wanted to see if I could meet the income goal I wanted by working with a national company with certain benefits involved (namely they deduct the employee portion of the FICA and pay the employer portion, i.e. statutory employee) and compare the results with what I had been making.

The one piece of information I did not have was approximately how many lines of dictation were in an hour of dictation. Stacy Abraham did a little checking of her records and came up with a number for me. (More on that later.)

I have been getting 10 cents per 65-character line and this company pays on a 60-character line (including spaces). So the question here is how much per 60-character line comes out to the same as 10 cents per 65-character line. You divide 10 cents by 65 to get the rate per character, and then multiply that by the number of characters in the new line (60) to get the rate for the 60-character line. The formula is

current line rate = New line rate

current characters per line New characters per line

At 10 cents per 65-character line, the same rate of pay for a 60 character line is 9.23 cents per line. On that basis, if you are offered 9 cents for a 60-character line, you will be losing slightly. (But we still have not factored in the FICA.) Here is a table with that calculation for several figures:

Equivalent line rates: (cents per line)

Price per 65-character line =	price per 60-character line =	price per 70-character line
7	6.46	7.54
8	7.38	8.62
9	8.31	9.69
10	9.23	10.77
11	10.15	11.85
12	11.08	12.92
13	12.00	14.00
14	12.92	15.08

The next thing I wanted to know was how many 60-character lines were equivalent to 100 65-character lines. The formula for this is:

Current line length x 100 lines = New line length x New number of lines

So 65 cpl x 100 lines = 6500 characters = 60 cpl x (?lines) = 6500/60 = 108

Lines at 65 characters / line =	Lines at 60 characters / line =	Lines at 70 characters / line
54	58.5	50.1
100	108.3	92.9

I used 54 here also as that is how many lines there are on an 11" page with 1" top and bottom margins if you are using 6 lines to the inch which is the old typewriter standard. The proportional fonts of modern word processors don't follow that, but good old WP5.1 does and that is what most of us use.

The next calculation of interest to me is the FICA thing. If the company pays the employer's half of this, you may not actually see this money, but is money you do not have to pay from your gross earnings. So this really amounts to an addition to your pay per line if you are comparing line rates without this benefit. In other words, if you have to pay this yourself, you need to earn X amount more to cover it. If they pay it, you can get by with X amount less. (You still have to pay the employee part, and they will deduct it most times, but it is a wash--you pay it in either case.) So here we will be factoring this into the line rate. First column will be line rate as an IC (no one else paying the FICA) and next will be the line rates you could accept to net the same amount.

This formula is cents per line minus 7.65% which is the amount they pay for you. (The actual formulas in this table also have included in the calculations the calculations made above in the conversion from 65- to 60- and 70-character lines in the last two columns.) [I'm afraid this explanation is as clear as mud. I hope you all understand it!] In essence, an IC earning 10cents per 65-character line would be earning the same as a Statutory Employee making 9.26 cents per 65-character line or one earning 8.54 cents per 60-character line.

Independent Contractor at X per 65-character line =	Statutory Employee at X per 65-character line	SE at X per 60 cpl	SE at X per 70 cpl
7	6.46	5.97	6.43
8	7.39	6.82	7.35
9	8.31	7.67	8.27
10	9.24	8.52	9.18
11	10.16	9.38	10.10
12	11.08	10.23	11.02
13	12.01	11.08	11.94
14	12.93	11.93	12.86

The next thing I wanted to figure out was how much dictation would I need to do to earn a certain amount of money per 4 week period. This is where I needed an approximate number of lines of transcription were in 60 minutes of dictation. Stacy told me she was getting from 500 to 600 lines out of each hour of dictation. This was figured on a 60-character line. I think the table titles explain what these show. I deliberately figured the phone charges high to account for phone charges involved in modeming completed work back and the pauses needed between reports, etc. (I put in the lower numbers of lines as this table will work no matter what the line length is, i.e. 60, 65, 70 characters per line, as you just figure the appropriate number of lines for each hour of whatever size line you need.)

Gross earnings for 60 minutes of dictation if 60 minutes of dictation yields x lines

number of lines	7 cents per line	7.5 cents per line	8 cents per line	8.5 cents per line	9 cents per line	9.5 cents per line	10 cents per line
350	$24.50	$26.25	$28.00	$29.75	$31.50	$33.25	$35.00
400	$28.00	$30.00	$32.00	$34.00	$36.00	$38.00	$40.00
450	$31.50	$33.75	$36.00	$38.25	$40.50	$42.75	$45.00
500	$35.00	$37.50	$40.00	$42.50	$45.00	$47.50	$50.00
550	$38.50	$41.25	$44.00	$46.75	$49.50	$52.25	$55.00
600	$42.00	$45.00	$48.00	$51.00	$54.00	$57.00	$60.00

Earnings after FICA is deducted. (Employee's part)

(Earnings = Gross earnings - FICA of 7.65%

number of lines	7 cents per line	7.5 cents per line	8 cents per line	8.5 cents per line	9 cents per line	9.5 cents per line	10 cents per line
350	$22.63	$24.24	$25.86	$27.47	$29.09	$30.71	$32.32
400	$25.86	$27.71	$29.55	$31.40	$33.25	$35.09	$36.94
450	$29.09	$31.17	$33.25	$35.32	$37.40	$39.48	$41.56
500	$32.32	$34.63	$36.94	$39.25	$41.56	$43.87	$46.18
550	$35.55	$38.09	$40.63	$43.17	$45.71	$48.25	$50.79
600	$38.79	$41.56	$44.33	$47.10	$49.87	$52.64	$55.41

Earnings after FICA and phone charges are deducted.

(Earnings = Gross earnings - FICA of 7.65% - $7 phone charges)

I didn't expand this table as I did those above because this is a simple calculation. Just subtract $7 from any of the figures in the table before this one!

number of lines	7 cents per line	9 cents per line	9.5 cents per line	10 cents per line
500	$25.32	$34.56	$36.87	$39.18
550	$28.55	$38.71	$41.25	$43.79
600	$31.79	$42.87	$45.64	$48.41

Next I wanted to figure out how long it would take ME personally to type the required amount of dictation. I know that I do 100-250 65-character lines per hour of working. So I figured conservatively here also and just converted from 100, 150, and 200 lines per hour this way to x 60-character lines per hour which came out to be 108, 162, and 216 respectively. BTW, if you all use expansion programs, I expect you will be faster. I don't, yet. I wanted this to be a conservative figure so that I would not end up having to work longer to make the amount I want. If I can go faster, then that would be better. So the next table, I hope, is pretty self-explanatory.

I also didn't expand all of this table either. You should be able to figure out any differences you need!

To earn $1,000 per month (4 weeks), how many Hours of dictation do I need to do and how many hours per week and per day will it take to do it if I type 108, 162, or 216 lines per hour of transcribing? Note that this is after subtracting telephone charges and deducting the self-employment taxes from the gross, so actual $/hour I work will be higher than it would if figured from this chart.

Rate per line	Lines per hour of dict	Each hour of dictation earns	Hours of dict to earn $1,000	Total hours per week at 108 lines/hr	Hrs/ day, 5 days/ week	Hrs/ day, 4 days/ week	Hrs/ day 3 days/ week
7.0	500	$25.32	39.49	182.83	9.14	11.43	15.24
9.0	500	$34.56	28.94	133.97	6.70	8.37	11.16
9.5	500	$36.87	27.13	125.58	6.28	7.85	10.46
10.0	500	$39.18	25.53	118.18	5.91	7.39	9.85
7.0	550	$28.55	35.02	178.34	8.92	11.15	14.86
7.5	550	$31.09	32.16	163.78	8.19	10.24	13.65
8.0	550	$33.63	29.73	151.41	7.57	9.46	12.62
8.5	550	$36.17	27.64	140.78	7.04	8.80	11.73
9.0	550	$38.71	25.83	131.55	6.58	8.22	10.96
9.5	550	$41.25	24.24	123.45	6.17	7.72	10.29
10.0	550	$43.79	22.84	116.29	5.81	7.27	9.69
7.0	600	$31.79	31.46	174.77	8.74	10.92	14.56
9.0	600	$42.87	23.33	129.59	6.48	8.10	10.80
9.5	600	$45.64	21.91	121.73	6.09	7.61	10.14

10.0

600

$48.41

20.66

114.76

5.74

7.17

9.56

Rate per line	Lines per hour of dict	Each hour of dictation earns	Hours of dict to earn $1,000	Total hours per week at 162 lines/hr	Hrs/ day, 5 days/ week	Hrs/ day, 4 days/ week	Hrs/ day 3 days/ week
7.0	500	$25.32	39.49	121.88	6.09	7.62	10.16
9.0	500	$34.56	28.94	89.31	4.47	5.58	7.44
9.5	500	$36.87	27.13	83.72	4.19	5.23	6.98
10.0	500	$39.18	25.53	78.79	3.94	4.92	6.57
7.0	550	$28.55	35.02	118.90	5.94	7.43	9.91
7.5	550	$31.09	32.16	109.19	5.46	6.82	9.10
8.0	550	$33.63	29.73	100.94	5.05	6.31	8.41
8.5	550	$36.17	27.64	93.85	4.69	5.87	7.82
9.0	550	$38.71	25.83	87.70	4.38	5.48	7.31
9.5	550	$41.25	24.24	82.30	4.11	5.14	6.86
10.0	550	$43.79	22.84	77.53	3.88	4.85	6.46
7.0	600	$31.79	31.46	116.52	5.83	7.28	9.71
9.0	600	$42.87	23.33	86.40	4.32	5.40	7.20
9.5	600	$45.64	21.91	81.15	4.06	5.07	6.76

Rate per line	Lines per hour of dict	Each hour of dictation earns	Hours of dict to earn $1,000	Total hours per week at 216 lines/hr	Hrs/ day 5 days/ week	Hrs/ day 4 days/ week	Hrs/ day, 3 days/ week
7.0	500	$25.32	39.49	91.41	4.57	5.71	7.62
9.0	500	$34.56	28.94	66.98	3.35	4.19	5.58
9.5	500	$36.87	27.13	62.79	3.14	3.92	5.23
10.0	500	$39.18	25.53	59.09	2.95	3.69	4.92
7.0	550	$28.55	35.02	89.17	4.46	5.57	7.43
7.5	550	$31.09	32.16	81.89	4.09	5.12	6.82
8.0	550	$33.63	29.73	75.71	3.79	4.73	6.31
8.5	550	$36.17	27.64	70.39	3.52	4.40	5.87
9.0	550	$38.71	25.83	65.77	3.29	4.11	5.48
9.5	550	$41.25	24.24	61.72	3.09	3.86	5.14
10.0	550	$43.79	22.84	58.14	2.91	3.63	4.85
7.0	600	$31.79	31.46	87.39	4.37	5.46	7.28
9.0	600	$42.87	23.33	64.80	3.24	4.05	5.40
9.5	600	$45.64	21.91	60.86	3.04	3.80	5.07