How Do You Find the Percentage Difference Between Two Numbers?
Use This Equation:
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or
(New Number - Original Number) / Original Number * 100
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Equation Instructions:
First: Subtract the New Number from the Original Number
(the results of this subtraction is called “The Difference” between the two numbers)
Second: Take the Difference Between the Two Numbers and Divide it by the Original Number
(the results of this division will give you an answer that is a decimal point of some sort, it may be greater than 1 or less than 1)
Third: Multiply the Decimal Point from the Step Above by 100.
Boom, there you have it, that’s your answer!
The results of the three steps above in using the equation will be the Percent Difference between the Original Number and the New Number.
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Why is this concept Important?
What is it used for?
Discovering the percentage difference between two numbers allows people to calculate the magnitude of the difference of the new number compared to the original number.
For example:
Let’s say you purchased an item at a store for $100 and resold it at a yard sale for $102.
It’s all well and good that you made $2 off of your investment for doing little to no work, but you put $100 at risk and made $2, that’s a 2% increase from your total investment
A $2 dollar increase sounds small if you’re putting $100 at risk, which is why expressing this gain as a percent difference (2%) makes sense.
Let’s change it up and say you bought a product at a store for $1 and then sold it for $3 at a yard sale.
This is way better than the $100 product discussed above…
In buying a product for only $1 and selling it for $3 you made $2, but you tripled your money. You went from $1 to $3.
Buying a product for $1 and selling it for $3 would be a 200% percent difference, or a 200% gain.
That’s a lot larger of a percent difference than the $100 product example above.
In a way, the percentage difference puts things into perspective.
Anyone with sense would rather put $1 of their money at risk and triple their investment, rather than put $100 at risk just to make $2.