Index Archive

Minimum number of refugees today whose displacement is due to religious intolerance

: 9,000,000

Number who have done so at Fox News

: 5

Year by which, under international law, the U.S. government must destroy a cache of chemical weapons in Kentucky

: 2012

Year by which this is expected to occur, even under “an accelerated schedule”

: 2021

Minimum number of chemical-weapons leaks that have occurred there so far this year

: 4

Percentage of fish sampled from 291 U.S. streams for a recent study that were found to be contaminated with mercury

: 100

Number of times that Benson, a 64-pound British carp, was caught before dying of mysterious causes in August

: 63

Number of years he was voted “Britain’s Favourite Carp” by a U.K. fishing magazine

: 1

Number of British pubs that have closed since 2007

: 4,030

Percentage change during the past year in U.S. sales of Wild Turkey specialty bourbons

: +88

Number of U.S. Army public-affairs specialists who have embedded with corporations for media training since 2001

: 54

Number of Indian headdresses that could be made from the feathers of all U.S. turkeys eaten at Thanksgiving

: 43,212,000

Percentage of all U.S. health-care spending that goes to treating conditions caused by obesity

: 9

Percentage of U.S. health-care workers who say they would refuse to work during a pandemic flu emergency

: 16

Percentage of Americans who think the government should “stay out of Medicare”

: 39

Chance that an American who does not believe Barack Obama was U.S.-born also approves of his job as president

: 1 in 6

Percentage change in the volume of the average human brain during the past 10,000 years

: ???10

Gallons of blood pumped so far by artificial hearts in humans

: 165,000,000

Estimated length of human nose removed by U.S. plastic surgeons each year, in feet

: 5,469

Factor by which this exceeds the length of George Washington’s nose on Mount Rushmore

: 260

Last year in which the unemployment rate in what is now Silicon Valley was as high as today

: 1949

Number of years since recordkeeping began in 1948 in which this percentage has been so low

: 0

Number of U.S. states where it is currently legal for schools to use corporal punishment on disabled students

: 20

Chances that an American child currently held in an urban juvenile detention center has a mental illness

: 2 in 3

Number of Mexican children deported on their own from the United States last year

: 18,129

Percentage change since 1992 in the annual number of U.S. workplace fatalities among Hispanics

: +76

Change among U.S. workers as a whole

: ???10

Percentage after five years by which the pay of U.S. workers laid off in a recession lags that of those who kept their jobs

: 30

Percentage after twenty years

: 20

Chance that such a worker will ever regain his or her income level

: 1 in 4

Percentage of U.S. teens who are currently employed

: 29

Portion of major-studio motion pictures in 2003 and last year, respectively, that were shot in California

: 2/3, 1/3

Nightly rate that one San Diego hotel charges for a “Survivor” room, which lacks a bed, towels, and toilet paper

: $19

Percentage below the asking price at which Hugh Hefner sold his California home in August

: 36

Last year that the U.S. divorce rate was as high as in 2008

: 1970

Percentage of U.S. women today who are “always, frequently or sometimes” embarrassed by their feet

: 57

Damages sought, in a defamation suit, by a Chicago landlord from a tenant who complained about mold via Twitter

: $50,000

Amount that Israel’s foreign ministry has budgeted to create an “Internet Fighting Team”

: $150,000

Percentage of white Americans in August who said they considered Fox News “reliable”

: 46

Percentage of black and Latino Americans, respectively, who did

: 5, 11

Harper’s Index

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