Question

The cost of a pound of nails increased from $2.40 to $2.53. What is the percent of increase to the nearest whole-number percent?

Answer 1

The formula to find the percent increase of two values is:

$\text{ Percent Increase }=\frac{\text{ New price - Old price}}{\text{ Old price}}\cdot100$

In this case, we have:

$\begin{gathered} \text{ Old price }=\text{ 2.40} \\ \text{ New price }=\text{ 2.53} \end{gathered}$$\begin{gathered} \text{ Percent Increase }=\frac{2.53-2.4}{2.4}\cdot100 \\ \text{ Percent Increase }=\frac{0.13}{2.4}\cdot100 \\ \text{ Percent Increase }\approx0.054\cdot100\Rightarrow\text{ The symbol }\approx\text{ is read 'approximately'} \\ \text{ Percent Increase }\approx5\% \end{gathered}$

Therefore, the percent of increase to the nearest whole-number percent is 5%.