These expenses are to be divided up as per a child support agreement. One annual income is $47,063.99 and the other is $78,217.00. The amount to be paid by the parties is $409.00. What is the proportion that each should pay and/or what amount should each pay?

I assume that you mean the $409 is being pro-rated based on the two salaries. Any time you want to pro-rate a single number over a set of numbers, add up the set first. Then divide each individual number by that total, which gives you the proportion it is of the total. Then use that proportion on the single number.

That is:
47,063.99
+78,217.00
125,280.99

47,063.99/125,208.99 = .3758...

So that's approximately 38% of the total. If you want to just round to 38% or 37.6%, you can use that number for anything else you have as well. (Then minus it from 100% for the other one.)

Or leave that in your calculator with all those nice decimal places and multiply it by the $409, which applies that ~38% to the expense.

Thanks, just what I needed!!