percentages

Question

I am trying to find out what a person's salary is minus 6%. The salary is $13.97 and I calculate it by taking 6% of $13.97 which is 0.8382 then subtracting it from $13.97. The answer I get is $13.13. My boss calculates it by dividing $13.97 by 1.06 which equals $13.17. Which way is correct?

Answer 1

I believe your way is correct.  If a person's salary is X amount, and you want to found out what the salary is at 6% less, then you would just take 94% * X (or your way, they net the same number).  What his math is doing is take a salary X and finding out what other salary + 6% would equal X.  So if someone is making 13.17 and they get a 6% raise, then they make 13.97.

 

Basically you have situation 1 -- someone is making X amount of money and you want to see how much they'd make if they make 6% less, and situation 2 -- someone received a 6% raise and you want to find out how much they were making before the raise.  Your boss' math is following situation 2 and your math is following situation 1.  You should be able to tell from here which is correct.  I hope that helps.