[Math] the correct percent difference formula

percentages

While googling for percent difference formulas, I got two different formulas:

  1. (difference/old-value)$\times 100$.
  2. (difference/average)$\times 100$.

So, for $6$ and $9$, the first one gives $-33$ and the second gives $-40$. Which one is correct and when is either formula used?

Best Answer

It depends on what you are trying to do.

If you start out with $6$ and then it increases to $9$, and you want to know by how much the original value increased (or decreased), then you use **[(new value - old value)/old value] * 100. So, here, it would be $\dfrac{9 - 6}{6}*100 = \dfrac{3}{6}*100 = 50$%. (If when using this formula, your percent is a negative number, then that is the percentage it decreased by.

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