Question

Write a program that reads in the name and salary of an employee. Here the salary will denote an hoserly wage, such as \(\$ 9.25\). Then ask how many hours the employee worked in the past week. Be sure to aceept fractional hours. Compute the pay. Any overtime work (over 40 hours per week) is paid at 150 percent of the regular wage. Print a paycheck for the employee.

Short answer

Read name and wage, compute pay with overtime, print paycheck.

Step-by-step solution

Define the Problem Parameters

The problem requires us to create a program that calculates an employee's weekly pay, considering overtime pay for hours worked beyond 40 hours. This involves inputting the employee's name, hourly wage, and the total hours worked.

Plan the Program Logic

First, read the employee's name and hourly wage as inputs. Then, read the number of hours worked in the week. Identify how to compute regular and overtime pay. Regular pay must be for up to 40 hours and overtime pay for any hours beyond 40, at 1.5 times the regular hourly wage.

Writing the Code

Start by writing code to read inputs for name, hourly wage, and hours worked. Use conditional logic to calculate pay: - If hours are less than or equal to 40, multiply hours worked by hourly wage. - If hours are greater than 40, calculate regular pay for 40 hours and overtime pay for the hours above 40. The overtime is 1.5 times the hourly wage.

Calculate Regular and Overtime Pay

Extract regular hours (up to 40) and any additional hours for overtime. Use the formula:\[ \text{Regular Pay} = \text{hourly wage} \times \min(40, \text{hours worked}) \]\[ \text{Overtime Pay} = 1.5 \times \text{hourly wage} \times \max(0, \text{hours worked} - 40) \]Compute total pay as the sum of regular and overtime pay.

Print the Paycheck

Print out a statement to present the employee's name and computed total pay, formatted appropriately. This will appear as a paycheck, showing both regular and overtime amounts when applicable.

Key concepts

Conditional Logic

Conditional logic in programming is a way to make decisions in your code. Imagine it like directing traffic; depending on a condition, your program will decide what path to take. In our exercise, the condition is the number of hours worked in a week. This logic helps determine whether or not the employee should receive overtime pay.

Here's an example: you check if the hours worked are more than 40. If yes, some of those hours would be paid at an overtime rate. If not, you simply calculate the regular payment. This is achieved using 'if' statements in Python, which make your program adaptable to different situations based on the inputs provided. Using these conditions efficiently ensures that your program runs correctly under all circumstances.

Input Handling

Input handling is crucial when dealing with user data because it ensures the program reads and processes information accurately. In our exercise, we're dealing with the employee's name, their hourly wage, and the number of hours worked.

It's important to understand that user input can come in various forms. For example, fractional values for hours worked, like 37.5 hours, should be accepted and processed correctly. This is typically managed by collecting inputs via functions like `input()` in Python, which gather and convert user data into usable formats.

Always ensure user inputs are validated to prevent errors and ensure that calculations are accurate and meaningful.

Arithmetic Operations

Arithmetic operations help us perform calculations that are key parts of solving problems in programming. For calculating the employee's weekly pay, we use basic operations, such as multiplication.

The main arithmetic operations in this context are:

• Multiplying the number of hours worked by the hourly wage to determine regular pay.
• Calculating overtime pay by identifying hours over the normal 40-hour workweek and multiplying these by the 1.5 times the usual hourly rate.
• Summing regular pay and overtime pay to get the total weekly pay.

Mastering these operations allows you to handle financial calculations accurately, which is an essential skill in numerous programming tasks.

Overtime Calculation

Overtime calculation is an important concept when it comes to determining fair wages in labor-intensive tasks. In the context of our program, overtime pay is the additional pay rate given for hours worked beyond the regular 40-hour week.

We calculate this by first determining how many hours exceed the standard 40. This is done using the expression \(\max(0, \text{hours worked} - 40)\). Any hours above 40 are multiplied by the hourly wage and then by 1.5 to give the overtime rate as described in the problem statement.

This incentive encourages employees to work longer by offering compensation at a higher rate. It's also critical to implement such calculations correctly in applications to promote transparency and fairness in payroll management.