Conversion from expenses to population using per capita expense

[Rascall]

Good afternoon,

I’m struggling to get number 25.

I thought to find population in millions, you’d need to take the total expenditures, then apply the $250 per 100,000 people. I’m pretty sure per capita means this. So I thought to convert, I’d need to multiply expenditures ($47B) by 100,000 people /$250 to find the population.

Why is only dividing by $250 correct here to find population? I’m seriously struggling.

[cylverixxx]

Total/ (number of people) = per capita, no?

[Rascall]

AHHHHH. I had a facepalm moment just now. I just realized the 250 is the simplified version of total / (100,000 people). I didn’t see that 250 is 250 per person and not 250 per 100,000 people. Ahhhh. Thanks cylverixxx

edit: Nope I was even more off. I thought “per capita” was always per 100,000 people. Didn’t know it’s per 1 person.