High School

The starting annual salary for an office worker at a company is [tex]$29,000[/tex]. The company awards an annual increase of [tex]6.2\%[/tex].

1. Create an exponential model to represent the salary of someone who has worked there for [tex]t[/tex] years.

[tex]y = a(b)^t[/tex]

[tex]y = 29000(1.062)^t[/tex]

2. How much does a person make after 15 years?

*Round to the nearest dollar.*

Answer :

To solve the problem of determining how much a person makes after working for 15 years with an annual salary increase, we'll use an exponential model.

1. Initial Parameters:
- The starting annual salary is [tex]$29,000.
- The annual increase rate is 6.2%.

2. Exponential Model:

We'll use the formula for exponential growth:
\[
y = a \cdot (b)^t
\]

Where:
- \( y \) is the salary after \( t \) years.
- \( a \) is the initial amount, which is the starting salary, $[/tex]29,000.
- [tex]\( b \)[/tex] is the base of the exponential function, which is [tex]\( 1 \)[/tex] plus the annual increase rate in decimal form: [tex]\( 1 + 0.062 = 1.062 \)[/tex].
- [tex]\( t \)[/tex] is the number of years, which is 15 in this case.

3. Calculating the Salary After 15 Years:

Substitute the known values into the model:
[tex]\[
y = 29000 \cdot (1.062)^{15}
\][/tex]

After evaluating this expression, you find:
- The calculated salary is approximately [tex]$71,493.36672.

4. Rounding:

Since we need to round the salary to the nearest dollar, the amount is rounded to $[/tex]71,493.

Thus, after 15 years, the person will earn approximately $71,493 annually.