Question

The population of a town is 157,220 and is decreasing at a rate of 0.8% each year. Predict the population in 5 years (round to the nearest whole number).

Answer 1

Answer:

151,031

Step-by-step explanation:

If the population of a town is decreasing at 0.8% each year, the new population of the town will be $100\%-0.8\%=99.2\%$ of what it was last year. To find 99.2% of something, multiply it by 0.992. Therefore, we can write the following equation:

$f(x)=157,220\cdot 0.992^x$, where $f(x)$ is the population of the town $x$ years after the town had a population of 157,220.

Substitute $x=5$ into this equation to get the projected population after 5 years:

$f(5)=157,220\cdot 0.992^5, \\f(5)=151031.019048,\\f(5)\approx \boxed{151,031}$

Therefore, in 5 years, the population should be 151,031.