A town's total allowance for firefighter's wages and benefits in a new budget is $600,000. If wages are calculated at 40,000 per firefighter and benefits at $20,000 per firefighter, write an equation whose solution is the number of firefighters the towm can employ if they spend their whole budget. Let xrepresent the number of fire fighters they higher.

Answer 1

Let's denote \( x \) as the number of firefighters.

The total cost for each firefighter includes both wages and benefits. According to the problem:

• The wage per firefighter is $40,000.
• The benefits per firefighter are $20,000.

Therefore, the total cost per firefighter is:

\[ \text{Total cost per firefighter} = \text{Wage} + \text{Benefits} = 40,000 + 20,000 = 60,000 \]

Now, if the town spends its whole budget of $600,000 on the firefighters, we can set up the equation:

\[ 60,000x = 600,000 \]

Where:

• \( 60,000x \) is the total cost for \( x \) firefighters.
• \( 600,000 \) is the total budget.

Thus, the equation you are looking for is:

\[ 60,000x = 600,000 \]

Now, you can solve for \( x \) to find out how many firefighters the town can employ.