The New York Times cost $0.15 in 1970 and $2.00 in 2009. The average wage in man

Question

The New York Times cost $0.15 in 1970 and $2.00 in 2009. The average wage in manufacturing was $3.23 per hour in 1970 and $20.42 in 2009.

1. By what percentage did the price of a newspaper rise?
Round to the nearest tenth, if necessary.
?

2. By what percentage did the wage rise?
Round to the nearest tenth, if necessary.
?

3. In each year, how many minutes does a worker have to work to earn enough to buy a newspaper?
Round the answer to the nearest tenth, if necessary.

a. ????????? ???
b. ????????? ???

4. Did workers' purchasing power in terms of newspapers rise, fall, or remain the same?
--select--It rose.It fell.It remained the same.Item 5

The New York Times cost $0.15 in 1970 and $2.00 in 2009. The average wage in manufacturing was $3.23 per hour in 1970 and $20.42 in 2009.

1. By what percentage did the price of a newspaper rise?
Round to the nearest tenth, if necessary.
?

2. By what percentage did the wage rise?
Round to the nearest tenth, if necessary.
?

3. In each year, how many minutes does a worker have to work to earn enough to buy a newspaper?
Round the answer to the nearest tenth, if necessary.

a. ????????? ???
b. ????????? ???

4. Did workers' purchasing power in terms of newspapers rise, fall, or remain the same?
--select--It rose.It fell.It remained the same.Item 5

Explanation / Answer

1. The price of a newspaper went from $0.15 to $2.00. The way you would find the percentage change is to take the new price minus the old price, and then take all of that and divide that by the old price. Here, that's ($2.00-$0.15)/$0.15=$1.85/$0.15=12.333. Multiply this by 100% and we will get 1233.3%.

2) By the same token, we want to find the percentage increase in wages. We will do the same, and take the new wage minus the old wage, and then divide it all by the old wage. Here, that's ($20.42-$3.23)/$3.23 = $17.19/$3.23= 5.321. Multiply that by 100% and we will get 532.1%

3) In 1970, a newspaper cost $0.15 and the wage per hour is $3.23. To get how many minutes it will take for a worker to make enough money to get a newspaper, we first see the fraction of an hour it takes for someone to make $0.15. Here, we simply divide $3.23 by $0.15 and get that 21.53. This means that every 1/21.53 hours, a worker in 1970 can make $0.15. Since there are 60 minutes per hour, we see that 60/21.53 gives us 2.786, or 2.8 minutes.

Now, let's look at 2009. We do the same thing as above, and divide $20.42 by $2.00 and get 10.21. This means that in 1/10.21 hours, a worker in 2009 can make enough to buy a newspaper. Multiplying this by 60 minutes, we get 60/10.21 = 5.876, or 5.9 minutes.

4) Finally, with regards to purchase power, we see that the worker in 2009 now needs to work 5.9 minutes as opposed to 2.8 minutes in 1970 to make the money required for a newspaper. So, in terms of newspapers, the spending power of a worker in 2009 fell, since the time it takes for him to make the money for one newspaper in 2009 is more than double that of the time needed in 1970. Another way to think of this would be in 1970, a worker could have bought two newspapers working 5.6 minutes, but in 2009, a worker can only buy one newspaper working 5.9 minutes. Clearly, workers in 1970 had greater spending power in terms of newspapers.

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