If you simply want the number of contributing workers, there is a lot of
superfluous information in the question.

The number of contributing workers is a simple Vlookup on the year (eg for 2005,
it's 55.76%) times the total population (294.66m).

My bet is you will be asked to calculate benefit amounts in a later question,
hence the provision of additional information.

--
Regards,
Fred


"DFOSTER" <u23919@uwe wrote in message news:630180c5e77f8@uwe...
I have a problem that has the following information in the spreacsheet:


2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
NUMBER OF CONTRIBUTING WORKERS NA

NUMBER OF BENEFIT RECIPIENTS NA

EXPECTED POPULATION VALUES

"RECIP-
"CONTRIB-
IENTS"
UTORS"
YEAR EST POP % = 62 % 0 - 20 % PAYING
2004 290.81 0.1467 0.2934 0.5599
2005 294.66 0.1532 0.2892 0.5576
2006 297.91 0.1582 0.2858 0.5560
2007 300.80 0.1619 0.2830 0.5551
2008 303.77 0.1664 0.2798 0.5538


My question wants me to indicate the number of contributing workers. THis
amount is based on the percentage of the population that is contributing and
the total population. The percentage is increased by 1.5% for each year that
benefits are delayed--the delayed value is a constant and has its own cell.
The instructions indicate that I should access the contributor's percentage
paying and estimated population values in the lookup table by using the
VLOOKUP() function. I have used this function before, but the problem total
stumps me. I don't understand how to use the vlookup to find this
information. Can anyone help?