Index Archive

Average balance today

: $45,000

Portion of the population that is classified at the lowest level, “complex”

: 1/4

Number of different levels of allegiance to Kim Jong Il that North Koreans are classified under

: 3

Number of “Confucius Institutes” the Chinese government has established at U.S. universities to spread Chinese ideas

: 61

Estimated percentage change since 2007 in the U.S. market for technology to monitor employees and workplaces

: +43

Percentage change since 2008 in the number of formal neighborhood-watch groups in the United States

: +40

Percentage of Americans who think that “most Americans do not live up to their responsibilities” as citizens

: 68

Factor by which the total fees to become a U.S. citizen today exceed those in 1989

: 5

Number of tickets Dallas police officers have issued since 2006 for not speaking English

: 39

Number of America’s 93 federal prisons where sexual abuse or misconduct by employees has been reported since 2001

: 92

Chance that a Guant?namo detainee has been cleared for release or transfer but remains in prison there

: 1 in 2

Date on which a Goldman Sachs vice president of “business intelligence” became the head of enforcement at the SEC

: 10/13/09

Number George W. Bush attended during his first year as president

: 6

Date on which Obama tied Bush for the number of rounds of golf played while in office

: 10/25/09

Average balance of a U.S. 401(k) account in 1998

: $62,000

Percentage of all U.S. 401(k) accounts that are worth less than $10,000

: 46

Chance that an employed American over 65 says that he or she works out of a need for money

: 1 in 6

Amount of stimulus money spent for each job the Obama Administration claims to have created or saved

: $250,000

Average number of minutes unemployed Americans are spending looking for a job each day

: 18

Number of applications a weekly newspaper in Denver received for its job of medical-marijuana reviewer

: 249

Number of Minneapolis’s eleven mayoral candidates in November who listed their party affiliation as “Is Awesome”

: 1

Minimum number of House candidates in Florida this year who are running as Whigs

: 3

Amount that a Florida attorney spent in 2008 on the cake for Governor Charlie Crist’s birthday party

: $52,000

Number of party fund-raisers President Obama has attended since taking office

: 26

Percentage of these children who were assaulted by siblings

: 63

Chance that a U.S. child reports having been assaulted in the past year

: 1 in 2

Average amount the U.S. government spends on each child during his or her first eighteen years

: $140,000

Average amount spent on congressional lobbying, per day, by U.S. health-care companies in 2009

: $1,500,000

Number of registered drug-company lobbyists in Washington, D.C., for every member of Congress

: 2

Date on which the fifty-millionth man-made chemical was registered

: 9/7/09

Number today

: 5

Number of members of the Amazonian Akuntsu tribe in 1995, when it was first contacted by the Brazilian government

: 7

Factor by which the current global species-extinction rate exceeds what ecologists consider the “natural” rate

: 100

Ratio of the total explosive energy of opening this many bottles to that from a ton of TNT

: 4:1

Number of bottles of champagne currently held in reserve by local producers

: 1,215,000,000

Estimated annual cost of the security detail that the will of hotel magnate Leona Helmsley provided for her dog

: $100,000

Factor by which the carbon footprint of a German shepherd exceeds that of an SUV

: 3

Tons of CO2 that All Nippon Airways expects to save per month by asking passengers to use the bathroom before boarding

: 4.2

Tons by which U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions would be reduced if our obesity rate were cut to 3 percent

: 185,000,000

Number of its three Icelandic locations that McDonald’s closed in October, citing a “complex operational environment”

: 3

Harper’s Index

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