Chapter 4.2, Problem 44AYU

Poverty Rates The data (top, right) represent the percentage of families with children in the United States whose income is below the poverty level.

With a graphing utility, draw a scatter plot of the data. Comment on the type of relation that appears to exist between the two variables.

Decide on a function of best fit to these data (linear. quadratic, or cubic), and use this function to predict the percentage of U.S. families with children that were below the poverty level in $2016$ $\left(t=13\right)$. Compare your prediction to the actual value of $15.0$.

Draw the function of best fit on the scatter plot drawn in part (a).

$\begin{array}{l}\begin{array}{llll}\text{Year},t\hfill & \begin{array}{l}\text{Percent}\text{below}\\ \text{Proverty}\text{Level},p\end{array}\hfill & \text{Year},t\hfill & \begin{array}{l}\text{Percent}\text{below}\\ \text{Proverty}\text{Level},p\end{array}\hfill \\ 2004,1\hfill & 14.8\hfill & 2010,7\hfill & 18.5\hfill \\ 2005,2\hfill & 14.5\hfill & 2011,8\hfill & 18.5\hfill \\ 2006,3\hfill & 14.6\hfill & 2012,9\hfill & 18.4\hfill \\ 2007,4\hfill & 15.0\hfill & 2013,10\hfill & 18.1\hfill \\ 2008,5\hfill & 15.7\hfill & 2014,11\hfill & 17.6\hfill \\ 2009,6\hfill & 17.1\hfill & 2015,12\hfill & 16.3\hfill \end{array}\\ \end{array}$