Terry earns $10 per hour at Big Bob's Burgers. Jill earns 20% less than Terry and Jerry earns $0.50 more per hour than Jill. Which expression represents how much Jerry earns? (h represents hours)

Question

I don't understand how to solve it and like how to write down the equation

2539 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2018-05-23T00:44:55

Jerry earns $8.50/h

Let's express each persons wage as a variable. Terry will be #T#, Jill will be #J#, and Jerry will be #R#.

"Jill earns 20% less than Terry"

Mathematically:

#J=(1-0.2)T#

#color(blue)(J=0.8T)#

"Jerry earns $0.50 more per hour than Jill"

#R=color(blue)(J)+($0.50)/h#

Since we know a solution for Jill's wage in terms of Terry's, we can substitute that in:

#R=color(blue)(0.8T)+($0.50)/h#

Now, we can solve for Jerry's hourly wage:

#R=0.8(($10)/h)+($0.50)/h#

#R=($8)/h+($0.50)/h#

#color(green)(R=($8.50)/h)#