Question

Paolo is saving for a trip to the Bahamas with his friends. He has estimated t travel expenses will cost between $2,000 and $3,000 total. He has $250 in savin earns $15.25 per hour at his job. He wants to know how many hours he must order to afford the trip.

Write an inequality to represent the situation

Answer 1

Paolo must work a number of hours represented by the inequalities 250 + 15.25h ≥ 2000 and 250 + 15.25h ≥ 3000 to afford his trip, where h is the number of hours he needs to work.

Step-by-step explanation:

To represent Paolo's situation with an inequality, we first need to establish the variables. Let's assume h represents the number of hours Paolo needs to work to afford the trip. Paolo already has $250 in savings, and he earns $15.25 per hour at his job. He estimates that the travel expenses will cost between $2,000 and $3,000.

To calculate the minimum number of hours Paolo must work to afford the trip, we can set up the following inequality to reflect that his existing savings plus his earnings from work should be at least enough to cover the lower end of his estimated expenses:
250 + 15.25h ≥ 2000.

To cover the upper end of the travel cost estimate, the inequality would be:
250 + 15.25h ≥ 3000.

These inequalities will help Paolo determine the range of hours he needs to work to afford the trip. To solve either inequality, we would subtract 250 from both sides and then divide by 15.25 to find the minimum number of hours h he must work.