Final answer:
Jose paid $51.85 for an item originally priced at $61 after applying a 15% discount, calculated by multiplying the regular price by the discount rate in decimal form and subtracting the result from the original price.
Step-by-step explanation:
To calculate how much Jose paid for an item with a regular price of $61 after a 15% discount, we need to first convert the percentage discount to a decimal by dividing by 100. This gives us 0.15. Then, we multiply the regular price by the discount in decimal form to find out how much money the discount represents.
$61 × 0.15 = $9.15
This is the discount amount. To find the final price Jose paid, we subtract the discount amount from the regular price:
$61 - $9.15 = $51.85
Therefore, Jose paid $51.85 for the item after the discount was applied.