Harper’s Index

Year that the Social Security trustees in 1994 projected the program would no longer be able to pay out full benefits: 2029¹

Year projected by the trustees in 2004: 2042²

Amount to which a San Diego defense analyst’s payments to Social Security had appreciated when he retired in 1994: $261,372³

Amount to which he calculated they would have grown if he had invested in a Dow Jones index fund instead: $248,166⁴

Estimated total federal assistance for which Wal-Mart employees were eligible last year: $2,500,000,000⁵

Percentage of songs on Billboard’s Top 20 list during 2004 whose lyrics mention at least one brand name: 40⁶

Percentage that mention weaponry: 50⁷

Ratio of the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to the number of Iraqi resisters, as estimated by Iraq’s new director of intelligence: 3:4⁸

Size of cash “gifts” given to reporters by Iyad Allawi’s party in January: $100⁹

Percentage of Britons who say their neighborhood would disapprove if more Iraqi immigrants moved in: 64¹⁰

Percentage who say this about black immigrants from Africa: 43¹¹

Portion of the land normally cultivated in Darfur, Sudan, that went unplanted last year: 1/2¹²

Minimum percentage of Darfuris expected to require emergency food assistance this month: 39 ¹³

Number of new doctors sub-Saharan Africa would need for its per-capita number to match America’s: 3,900,000¹⁴

Number of new doctors produced by sub-Saharan Africa’s universities each year: 4,000¹⁵

Number of African nations that have trade deals with China: 41¹⁶

Amount that Egypt owes the United States in unpaid parking tickets: $1,700,000¹⁷

Percentage that Libyan nuclear compliance “contributed” to President Bush’s reelection, according to Muammar Qaddafi: 50¹⁸

Number of Web postings surveyed in 2003 and 2004 by the “Global Hatred Index”: 2,000,000¹⁹

Percentage that were found to contain some degree of anti-Americanism: 35²⁰

Ratio of the number of computer viruses targeting Microsoft Windows‒based computers to those that target Macs: 1,000:1²¹

Minimum number of songs sold on Apple’s online music store that consist entirely of silence: 291²²

Year that testimony to Chile’s torture commission last year can be divulged or used in court: 2054²³

Number of times Italy’s judges have gone on strike since 2001: 3²⁴

Minimum number of days that a Florida couple picketed their home in December to get their children to do more chores: 17²⁵

Amount that the U.S. wedding industry would gain each year if gays wed at the same rate as straights: $17,000,000,000²⁶

Amount that U.S. divorce attorneys would gain if gays also divorced at the same rate: $1,900,000,000²⁷

Number of homosexual penguins found in Japan’s aquariums and zoos last year: 46²⁸

Number of live bees spilled onto a Las Vegas highway in December: 22,400,000²⁹

Estimated percentage that were subsequently foamed to death: 100³⁰

Minimum number of snakes living in captivity in Ireland: 2,000³¹

Number of Americans who called poison-control centers in 2003 to report rodenticide exposure: 18,545³²

Chances that an FDA scientist lacks confidence in the agency’s ability to monitor the safety of current drugs: 2 in 3³³

Average number of years by which a 2004 study found the cells of chronically stressed women to have prematurely aged: 13³⁴

Microseconds by which December’s Indian Ocean earthquake permanently shortened the length of a day: 3³⁵

Chance that a tsunami will hit the U.S. Pacific Northwest in the next thirty years: 1 in 10³⁶

Days after Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston separated in January that an Us Weekly executive called the story “our tsunami”: 4³⁷

Number of saplings that Pitt paid to have planted in Bhutan last year to counteract his personal CO2 production: 1,700³⁸

Number of plastic surgeries undergone by the winner of last year’s “Miss Artificial Beauty” pageant in China: 4³⁹

Number undergone by the runner-up: 10⁴⁰

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