Question

At the end of 2005, the national debt for the U.S. was about 10 trillion dollars, and the population of the U.S. was about 10 to the 8th power. About how much was the per capita (per person) debt?

Answer 1

To find the amount of debt per person, we need to first figure out the amount of people based on the information we have:

Since the population of the United States in 2005 was 10^8, we can simplify this exponent into

10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10

Which is 100,000,000.

Now, we need to divide this by 10 trillion, or 10,000,000,000,000.

100,000,000 / 10,000,000,000,000 = 0.00001

Or roughly 0.001 of a cent per person.

Hope this helps!