Question

By what percentage did the median earnings of college degreed exceed that of high school degreed for 1973 for men (to the nearest tenth)?___ %
By what percentage did the median earnings of college degreed exceed that of high school degreed for 1967 for women (to the nearest tenth)?___%

Answer 1

Remark

I'm going to state what I think the question is saying. I'm having a little trouble figuring it out.

1. Both groups are from 1967.

2. Both groups are women?

It's actually clear, but I had to restate it to get it clear for me.

Solution

Givens

College: Women= 4400

H.School: Women = 3300

Solve

The base number is the high  school women.

The difference is 4400 - 3300 = 1100

So the % = (1100/3300) * 100% = 33.3%

1973

I did this in the wrong order, but it will still give you the right answer.

The base number is again high school: 5600

Difference: 6600 - 5600 = 1000

% = (1000/5600) * 100% = 17.9

Comment

What this means is that if you take the % difference and multiply it by the smaller number you get the actual difference between the 2 groups.  Put another way, for the 1973 group, the college women made 17.9 % more than the high school group. As an aside, there are lots of reasons for this and I'm not certain it is any longer true.