Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 5 / 111 of 400 #711 of 1964

Problem 711

AIME late
Number theory Difficulty 5.3 Find the answer

10.2 It is known that 10%10 \% of people own no less than 90%90 \% of all the money in the world. For what minimum percentage of all people can it be guaranteed that these people own 95%95 \% of all the money?

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Official solution

Solution. Let 100S100 S be the total amount of money in the world (regardless of the currency), and the total number of people be 100N100 N (where NN can be non-integer, which is not important). Then at least 90S90 S of the money is owned by 10N10 N people (let's call this group oligarchs). The remaining 90N90 N people (let's call them commoners) have less than 10S10 S in total. Let's take the poorest half of the commoners. These 45N45 N people have no more than half of the money of all commoners, which is no more than 5S5 S. Therefore, if we take all people except these 45N45 N, they will have at least 95S95 S in total. There are 55N55 N such people, which is 55%55 \%. We have proven that 55%55 \% of the richest people own 95%95 \% or more of all the money.

Let's provide an example showing that less than 55%55 \% may not be possible. Suppose there are 100 people, 10 of whom have 81 million each, and 90 have 1 million each. Then out of the total capital of 900 million, 90%90 \% (810 million) belongs to the first ten people, and the condition of the problem is satisfied. 95%95 \% of the capital is 855 million. To accumulate this amount, it is necessary to have the 55 richest people: 1081+45110 \cdot 81 + 45 \cdot 1.

Answer: 55%55 \%.

IS IN THE SOLUTIONSCORE
Correct and justified answer7 points
The problem is correctly solved in specific monetary units (for example, assuming the total amount of money is 10000000000 yuan)points not to be reduced
It is proven that 55%55 \% of the richest people own at least 95%95 \% of all the money, but there is no example showing the precision of the estimate, OR an example showing the precision of the estimate 55%55 \%, but no proof that the example is optimal3 points
Examples where the "rich" people are more than 55%55 \% and/or more crude estimates than 55%55 \% are provided0 points

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic, difficulty and ordering added by this site.