BUSINESS: Computer Affordability As prices of computers fall and wages rise, it takes...

BUSINESS: Computer Affordability As prices of computers fall and wages rise, it takes less time to earn enough money to buy a computer. The following graph shows the number of weeks that an American with an average income had to work to buy a notebook computer in recent years.

a. Number the years (bars) with x-values 1–4 so that 1 stands for 1995, 2 stands for 2000, and so on. Use exponential regression to fit a curve to the data. State the regression formula. [Hint: See Example 12.]

b. Use the regression formula to predict the number of weeks of income needed to buy a computer in 2020. [Hint: What number corresponds to 2020?]