Bentley is working two summer jobs, making $18 per hour lifeguarding and making $8 per hour clearing tables. In a given week, he can work no more than 15 total hours and must earn at least $180. If Bentley worked 5 hours clearing tables, determine the minimum number of whole hours lifeguarding that he must work to meet his requirements. If there are no possible solutions, submit an empty answer.

8 hours

Step-by-step explanation:

First, let's find how much Bentley gets from clearing tables.

5 hours • $8 per hour = $40 total

We can take $40 off his $180 total, leaving the rest for when we figure out how much he needs to work lifeguarding.

$180 needed - $40 earned = $140 left to earn

We know that Bentley makes $18 an hour lifeguarding, so in order to get the number of hours he would need to work in order to make $140, we can divide it by $18.

$140 needed : $18 per hour = 7.77 ...

We need to convert this to a whole number because we're talking about hours worked, so Bentley would need to work 8 hours lifeguarding to make $140 more. He can only work 15 hours total, so let's check if this exceeds his limit.

5 hours clearing tables + 8 hours lifeguarding = 13 hours < 15 hours max

It is possible to make $180 total from this work schedule, so your answer would be 8 hours.