The unemployment data are plotted in the graph in Figure 1.29. Note that except for the initial point (0, 6.8) the distribution of data points is roughly linear. The Explore! box in the margin describes how to use your calculator to apply the least-squares pro- cedure to these data, and you get y 0.389x 7.338 as the equation of the best- fitting line. By evaluating the corresponding linear function f(x) 0.389x 7.338 at x 14 (the year 2005), you find that