Hourly Earnings Answer Key
About This Worksheet
This worksheet helps seventh-grade students calculate hourly pay by comparing total earnings with hours worked. Students work through jobs such as dog walking, yard work, car washing, pet sitting, tech help, party setup, gardening, and tutoring. For each situation, they divide the total amount earned by the number of hours to find the hourly rate. This makes the idea of a unit rate very practical because students can see exactly how much money is earned for one hour of work. It also gives them useful experience with decimals and mixed-number time amounts.
What Students Practice
Students find dollars per hour by dividing total pay by total hours worked. Some problems use whole-number hours, while others include decimal or fractional amounts of time, which makes the rate calculation more challenging. Students must keep the units clear so they know the answer represents earnings for one hour. The variety of work situations helps them recognize that the same unit-rate process applies even when the numbers look different. This gives them practice with division, money, fractions, decimals, and proportional reasoning all in one activity.
Why This Matters
Hourly pay is one of the clearest real-life examples of a unit rate. Students can easily understand why earning $36 in 3 hours is different from earning the same amount in 6 hours. Finding the rate per hour creates a fair way to compare jobs and understand earnings. This same kind of reasoning is used when comparing speed, prices, production, and other proportional relationships. It also helps students build practical financial literacy they can use outside the classroom.
Teaching Tips
Encourage students to write “dollars per hour” beside each problem before they calculate. Ask them which number should be divided by which so the final units come out correctly. When hours are written as fractions or mixed numbers, have students convert carefully before dividing. You can also ask which job pays more per hour after the worksheet is complete. That simple comparison gives the calculations an extra real-world purpose.
Curriculum Standards
This worksheet directly supports CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.7.RP.A.1 by having students compute unit rates involving money and time. It also supports CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.7.RP.A.2 by reinforcing constant rates within proportional relationships. Problems involving fractional hours give students additional practice with the fraction-based rate reasoning expected in Grade 7. The activity works well for independent practice, homework, financial-literacy connections, or review during a ratios and proportions unit.