Question

In 2015 Forbes magazine listed Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, as the richest person in the United States. His personal wealth was estimated to be $76 billion. If there were 314 million people living in the United States that year, how much could each person have received if Gates’ wealth had been divided equally among the population of the United States? (Hint: A billion is a 1 followed by nine zeros while a million is a 1 followed by six zeros.)

Answer 1

Explanation:

I wish this calculation were applied to the Federal Debt.

Amount of money = 76,000,000,000

Population: 314,000,000

Each person receives 76,000,000,000 / 314,000,000

Cancel 6 zeros from the numerator and the denominator

76000/314

242.04 would be what each person gets.

If you do the same thing with the Federal debt, you get about 70000 which means that if the debt were to be repayed it would take every American paying 70000 dollars each.