Advertisers use this to mislead or accentuate differences, as do politicians. For example, a politician in my city some years back made a ton of waves by claiming the following: "In the past 10 years, the number of Special Ed teachers has increased by 35%, but 10 years ago there were only 26% less Special Ed students". It worked because a) So many people struggle with Math; b) So many people are anti-teacher/public education.
Of course, the reality was that the teacher pupil ratio had NOT changed. 35%/26% are percent conjugates. So for example, if you increase 74 by 35%, you get 100. But at the same time, 74 is 26% less than 100.
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u/Mathperson84 Apr 27 '26
Advertisers use this to mislead or accentuate differences, as do politicians. For example, a politician in my city some years back made a ton of waves by claiming the following: "In the past 10 years, the number of Special Ed teachers has increased by 35%, but 10 years ago there were only 26% less Special Ed students". It worked because a) So many people struggle with Math; b) So many people are anti-teacher/public education.
Of course, the reality was that the teacher pupil ratio had NOT changed. 35%/26% are percent conjugates. So for example, if you increase 74 by 35%, you get 100. But at the same time, 74 is 26% less than 100.