<prompt> Human: I am leaving my company for another job but my current employer offered to keep me on as an independent contractor. Since I will have to file a 1099 for my earnings and will be having to pay for SS and Medicare on my own now, how much is a fair rate to charge if was making 20 an hour?  <response>: littlesheba16 gave a pretty solid breakdown of the numbers but I would like to add one more thing.If your salary with that employer plus benefits all comes to 44.36 per hour you still havent really added in a convenience fee to them, or adjusted for the fact this is on top of other work and outside normal hours. I would say you should easily be asking for 50-60hour to contract for them. I would also make sure to have On-Call or emergency work listed at a different rate, and that no matter how little time something takes there is always a minimum charge of 1 hour and time doesnt stack over days ex. If I work 15 minutes today on an issue and an 1.5 hours tomorrow on another issue that is 3 billable hours of work. Contracting on top of a job can be rough and needs to be worth more to you than just having a second job. 