Question

Jack and Jane are married and both work. However, due to their responsibilities at home, they have decided that they do not want to work over 65 hours per week combined. Jane is paid $14 per hour at her job, and Jack is paid $7 per hour at his. Neither of them are paid extra for overtime, but they are allowed to determine the number of hours per week that they wish to work. If they need to make a minimum of $770 per week before taxes, what is the maximum amount of hours that Jack can work per week according to these limits?

Answer 1

By setting up a system of equations we can easily solve this problem. Let's denote Jane's working hours with x and Jack's working hours with y. Since they don't want to work more than 65 hours, the first equation is x+y=65. The second equation is 14x+7y=770. By solving this system of equation $\left \{ {{x+y=65} \atop {14x+7y=770}} \right.$, we find that y=20 hours, which is Jack's maximum working hours.