Q3: Wages and Overtime

Question:

Bill Tupper makes $24 per hour for a 40 hour work week. He earns time and a half for every hour over 40 hours during that one week. If Bill earned $1140 last week, how many overtime hours did he work?

Answer:

We can divide Bill's earnings into two categories. He earned a certain amount during his regular time and a certain amount extra in overtime. The first step is to calculate how much money Bill Tupper made during his regular 40 hours:

Regular = 40hrs * $24 = $960

The second step is to figure out how much he made as overtime. If Bill earned $1140 total, and $960 of that came from his regular hours, then obviously the rest was overtime:

Overtime: $1140 - $960 = $180

Now that we know how much he made in overtime we can calculate how many hours he worked. Since multiplying his hours times the hourly rate will give us $180, we can express that in an equation as well. Remember that he's now earning 1.5 times his regular wage.

(hours)*($24)*(1.5)=$180

hours*$36=$180

hours=5

Bill Tupper must have worked 5 hours of overtime to earn a total of $1140 for the week.