Question

jordan has been offered two summer jobs. One job is at the mall and pays $7 per hour. The other job is with your neighbor, who will pay $50 per week plus $5 per hour. How many hours per week would jordan have to week for both jobs to pay the same amount?

Answer 1

so, let's let P be his profit (wage) and h be total hours he is deciding to work for.

P = 7h
P = 5h + 50

These are the equations we have. Imagine they are lines on graph paper, and we have to find their intersection point (a point where an xy point is on both lines). To do this, we have to find the h and P. I'll use some algebra:

P - P = 5h + 50 - 7h
0 = -2h + 50
2h = 50
h = 25

So, after 25 hours in a week, he should have gotten the same amount of money from both jobs.