Finding 36 * 44 hours of work a year at that rate is non-trivial, not to mention the difference between 1099 taxes vs w2 taxes you pay as a salaried employee.
the difference is 7% iirc, its kind of negligible which is why i dont even know exactly what it is. Because the hourly rates ratchet at higher increments than 7%. If you want more money you go release a side project, give a talk about it and poof 20% raise on next project.
Right. And the equal (if not more) amount of hours spent chasing leads, marketing (blogs, advertizing etc) accounting, to get the steady stream of work.