Hunter was paid $72 dollars for 5 hours of raking leaves and mowing the lawn. What was his hourly pay? Determine the proportion to use to solve this problem.

1 answer

To determine Hunter's hourly pay, we need to find out how much he earned for each hour of work.

Given:

  • Total pay = $72
  • Total hours worked = 5 hours

We can set up a proportion based on the information provided. We want to find the pay per hour.

Let \( x \) be the hourly pay. The proportion can be set up as:

\[ \frac{72 \text{ dollars}}{5 \text{ hours}} = \frac{x \text{ dollars}}{1 \text{ hour}} \]

This equation states that the total pay divided by the total hours worked equals the pay for one hour.

We can solve for \( x \) using this proportion:

\[ x = \frac{72 \text{ dollars}}{5 \text{ hours}} = 14.4 \text{ dollars per hour} \]

So Hunter's hourly pay is $14.40.

The proportion used to determine this was:

\[ \frac{72}{5} = \frac{x}{1} \]

Thus, Hunter earned $14.40 per hour.