SOLUTION: Four employees are paid at four consecutive levels on a wage scale. The difference between any two consecutive levels is $160 per month. The average of the four employee's monthl

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Question 186025This question is from textbook
: Four employees are paid at four consecutive levels on a wage scale. The difference between any two consecutive levels is $160 per month. The average of the four employee's monthly wages is $1440. What is the monthly wages of the highest paid employee?This question is from textbook

Answer by swiemers(10) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
First, we need to assign variables for the pay scales. They tell you that you have four consecutive levels and the difference between any two levels is $160. Therefore, your four consecutive pay levels would be:
a
a + 160
a + 320
a + 480
Then, they also tell you that the average of the four employees wages is $1440. To find an average, you need to add all four variables together and divide by 4. So if we add all four of the above variables together, we would get:
4a + 960
Then to find the average, we need to divide that equation by 4.
4a/4 = a and 960/4=240
So we are left with the equation
a + 240 = 1440
Then we solve for a and get:
a = 1200
This is the monthly wages for the first person. To find the highest employee, we use the last equation, which is:
a + 480 and we plug in 1200 for a:
1200 + 480 = 1680
Therefore, the highest paid employee makes $1,680.
Hope this helps! Good luck! Sandy :-)