Subject: Percentages increases/ decreases over 100%
Name: Toya
Who are you: Other

I have some statistics from year to year based on drug seizures.(units= lbs)
e.g. in 2005 123lbs seized in 2006 1518lbs seized. now i worked out the percentage increase as to be in the thousands which from looking at the figures is correct however i don't want to say 1000% increase.

using another formula current- previous *100 I got 92%. what exactly does this 92% represent and how can i use this number when presenting my answers instead of using 1000 + %
current

Toya,

The number of pounds seized increased from 123 to 1518 so the percentage increase is

 (1518 - 123)/123 x 100 = 1134%

I assume this is what you calculated also.

On the other hand

 (1518 - 123)/1518 x 100 = 92%

so you might say "92% of the weight of this year's seizures is an increase over last year." I would however not use this statement as I would expect the question "Do you mean there was a 92% increase over last year?" The answer of course is "No, there was an 1134% increase over last year."

If you want to report the increase in weight of the drugs seized as a percentage increase then you need to use this number, a 1134% increase. You could say that there is more than a ten-fold increase if that sounds better to you. Another option is to report the number of seizures and the percentage increase in the number of seizures rather than use weight. A variable other than weight might be more meaningful, especially if the substantial increase in weight is a consequence of a few large seizures.

Stephen and Penny