What was his weekly pay check before when he was working 30 hours at his original hourly rate?

Question

Barney works in a department store selling suits. He works 30 hours per week, at a certain hourly rate. Recently he was able to work an extra 2 hours every week, but unfortunately his hourly rate was reduced by 5%. His new weekly pay check is $528.96. What was his weekly pay check before when he was working 30 hours at his original hourly rate?

Answer 1

We can use the formula salary = hourly rate * hours worked. Because there are two situations, we will need to use this equation twice. Let's call Barney's original salary and rate s and r. Then for the original situation we get:

salary = hourly rate * hours worked

s = r*30

And for the new situation we get:

salary = hourly rate * hours worked

528.96 = (.95r)*(30 + 2)

You can then solve the second equation for r and substitute that value of r back into the first equation. I got s = 522 dollars.