The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is the agency that insures pensions. The figure shows one study's projection for the agency's total resources, initially rising (from taking over the assets of failing plans) but then falling (as more workers retire and payouts increase).

(a) What kind of function might be used to model the agency's total resources?

(b) If a function of the form f (x) = ax2 + bx + c were used to model these total resources, would f (x) have a > 0 or a 

(c) If the model from part (b) used x as the number of years past 2004, explain why the model would have b> 0 and c > 0.

Transcribed Image Text:

50 40 30 20 10 2020 2004 2008 2012 2016 -101 Year Total Resources ($ billions)