Question 964344
This part of the description is no good because it is inconsistent:


<i>Assume the population growth is a linear function that grows at a steady unchanging rate of 0.9% per year and the debt growth is a lower function that grows at a steady unchanging rate of 13% per year. </i>

A percentage of a variable versus time is exponential, NOT linear.


Otherwise, the first question, the debt per citizen is the ratio  {{{(17000000000)/(317000000)=highlight(17000/317)}}}  dollars per person.


The only way to make sense of the description is to use the given percentages based on the given VALUES for debt and for the population, so these percents will then be made as FIXED constants.  This is because you are expecting linear relationships instead of exponential ones.


Population growth would be {{{(0.9/100)*317000000}}} persons per year, and debt growth would need to be {{{(13/100)*17000000000}}} dollars per year.