Question

You decide to work fewer hours per week, which results in a 19% decrease in your pay. What percentage increase in pay would you have to receive in order to gain your original salary again? Round your answer to the nearest tenth of a percent.

Answer 1

To regain the original salary after a 19% decrease, a 23.5% increase in pay is needed, due to the reduced base salary over which the percentage increase is calculated.

Step-by-step explanation:

If your pay decreases by 19%, it means you're earning 81% (100% - 19%) of your original salary. Let's denote your original salary as 100% and the reduced salary as 81%. To find out what percentage increase is required to return to 100%, we need to calculate the percentage change from 81 to 100. The calculation for the percentage increase is the change in quantity over the original quantity times 100.

In this case, the change in quantity is 100 - 81 = 19. You divide this by the reduced salary, which is 81. So you get 19/81. To find the percentage, you multiply by 100, resulting in approximately 23.46%. Therefore, you would need a 23.5% increase (rounded to the nearest tenth) to return to your original salary.