Percents: A company pays its salespeople on a basis of a....

[Kristen_Opp]

A company pays its salespeople on a basis of a certain percentage of the first 100,000 in sales and then a certain percent for anything beyond that. If one sales person earned 8500 on sales of 175,000 and another earned 14,800 on sales of 280,000 find the two different percents.

On the example of the first sales person, obviously the difference above 100,00 is 75,000, and they earned 8500 total. How do I set up the equation in order to determine how much of the total made was at the first amount and how much was at the second?

 

[skeeter]

let x = percent of $100000 as a decimal
y = percent of the remainder as a decimal

100000x + 75000y = 8500

100000x + 180000y = 14800

use elimination to solve the system ...

105000y = 6300

y = 6300/105000 = .06 = 6%

100000x + 75000(.06) = 8500

100000x = 8500 - 4500 = 4000

x = .04 = 4%