Question

Lisa and Shawna have summer jobs selling newspaper subscriptions door-to-door, but their compensation plans are different. Lisa earns a base wage of $10 per hour, as well as $2 for every subscription that she sells. Shawna gets $3 per subscription sold, in addition to a base wage of $5 per hour. If they each sell a certain number of subscriptions in an hour, they will end up earning the same amount. How many subscriptions would that be? Write a system of equations, graph them, and type the solution.​

Answer 1

To find the number of subscriptions that will result in Lisa and Shawna earning the same amount, we need to set up a system of equations and solve for x. The solution is x = 5/9, which means Lisa and Shawna will earn the same amount when they sell 5/9 of a subscription in an hour.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the number of subscriptions that will result in Lisa and Shawna earning the same amount, we need to set up a system of equations. Let's say x is the number of subscriptions sold by both Lisa and Shawna in an hour.

For Lisa, her earnings will be 10x + 2x = 12x.

For Shawna, her earnings will be 5 + 3x.

Setting these two equations equal to each other, we have 12x = 5 + 3x.

Subtracting 3x from both sides, we get 9x = 5.

Dividing both sides by 9 gives us x = 5/9.

Therefore, Lisa and Shawna will earn the same amount when they sell 5/9 of a subscription in an hour.