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Sometimes, in research articles the difference between two percentage is reported directly. How is it right? Example:

State A has 75% of people of X kind. State B has 80% of people of X kind.

The difference is generally reported as... The difference in these two states (A,B) in terms of people of kind X is only 5 %.

Should we not calculate the percentage difference as follows?

100*(80-75)/80 = 6.25% 

Or why not it is

100*(80-75)/75 = 6.66% 
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    It is, but that's what's meant. What would be more meaningful would be to report the *overall* percentage of people of type $X$. The $5\%$ does have some meaning, though. It gives you a sense of how different being in one state is from being in another. It just doesn't give you a good feel for how these statistics might play out at an interstate level.2012-03-30

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There's no reason to divide by $80$ or $75$ as you did above.

$80\%=0.80$ and $75\%=0.75$.

$0.80-0.75=0.05=5\%$

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    Please read my comment to @Peter.2012-03-30