SOLUTION: Kermit has agreed to paint Miss Piggy's house for $640.00. Unfortunately, it took Kermit 20 hours longer to paint the house than he had planned and he earned $1.60 per hour less th

Question 1060291: Kermit has agreed to paint Miss Piggy's house for $640.00. Unfortunately, it took Kermit 20 hours longer to paint the house than he had planned and he earned $1.60 per hour less than he had previously calculated. How much was Kermit's anticipated hourly wage to paint Miss Piggy's house?
Answer by ikleyn(52781) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
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Kermit has agreed to paint Miss Piggy's house for $640.00. Unfortunately, it took Kermit 20 hours longer to paint the house
than he had planned and he earned $1.60 per hour less than he had previously calculated.
How much was Kermit's anticipated hourly wage to paint Miss Piggy's house?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let "a be Kermit's anticipated hourly wage, in dollars.
Then his real hourly wage was (a-1.6) dollars.

So, Kermit originally planned to complete the job in  hours.
But in reality he spent  hours.

The difference is 20 hours. It gives you an equation

 -  = 20.

To solve it, multiply both sides by a*(a-1.6). You will ge

640a - 640(a-1.6) = 20a(a-1.6).

 = 0,

 = 0,

 = . . . .

The positive solution is a = 8.

Answer.  Kermit's anticipated hourly wage of $8.

Check.    = 80 hours.   =  = 100.  100 - 80 = 20.  Correct !

Solved.

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