Minimum number of college students who have raised money for expenses on GoFundMe, a crowdfunding site : 140,000
Number of Americans aged 60 and older who have outstanding student loans : 2,800,000
Portion of those borrowers who have taken on debt to pay for a child or grandchild’s education : 3/4
Minimum number of American colleges that have programs to study their past reliance on slavery : 28
That have changed their financial-aid or admissions policies to make amends : 1
Date on which the University of Cape Town agreed to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes after anticolonial protests : 4/8/2015
On which one of the student protesters was granted a Rhodes scholarship : 12/4/2016
Amount an English university was fined for giving students in an exercise-science experiment too much caffeine : $500,000
Estimated number of cups of coffee to which each dose was equivalent : 300
Value of prizes NASA awarded this year to inventors who designed new ways to dispose of bodily waste in space : $30,000
Gallons of diesel fuel that leaked from an Iowa pipeline one day after Donald Trump pledged to build two new pipelines : 46,830
Factor by which more Americans work in the solar industry than work in fossil fuels : 2
Percentage of Asian cities that fail to meet the World Health Organization’s air-quality standards : 86
Number of days in January on which air-pollution levels in London were higher than those in Beijing : 2
Percentage of children’s toys available in Sweden that contain banned chemicals : 15
Of sex toys available in Sweden : 2
Percentage increase in IUD prescriptions and procedures in the two months following Donald Trump’s election : 19
Number of U.S. states in which women would be at risk of losing their abortion rights were Roe v. Wade overturned : 33
Number of days for which the British Army used a Military Makeup stand as a strategy to recruit female soldiers : 3
Percentage by which the British Army missed its recruitment targets last year : 28
Number of rows that Air India designated as female-only on domestic flights after reports of sexual harassment and assault : 1
Price per person of a Survival Systems USA team-building exercise that guides clients through a simulated plane crash : $950
Average number of people who die in avalanches in the United States each year : 27
Portion of deadly U.S. avalanches that are triggered by the victim or a member of the victim’s party : 9/10
Ratio of the average annual number of deaths in the United States caused by drowning to those caused by gun violence : 1:8
Of federal research funding for drowning to funding for gun violence : 1:1
Percentage by which the average amount of gun violence in popular PG-13 movies exceeds that in popular R movies : 23
Percentage change since 2010 in the number of firearm silencers registered in the United States : +217
Number of days in the past two years during which there were no reported homicides in El Salvador : 1
Portion of U.S. police officers who believe that fatal encounters between police and black Americans are isolated incidents : 2/3
Who believe protests over black victims of police violence are driven by anti-law-enforcement bias : 9/10
Number of times a painting displayed on Capitol Hill depicting police as animals was stolen by Republican congressmen : 3
Minimum number of states in which laws to criminalize political protest have been introduced this year : 9
Number of FBI confidential informants who worked for Best Buy’s Geek Squad between 2008 and 2012 : 8
Percentage of Trump voters who believe he should be allowed to have a private email server : 42
Who believe he should not : 39
Factor by which sales of George Orwell’s 1984 increased during the three weeks after the presidential inauguration : 96
Rank of Nebraska among states with the least liked state flags : 1
Number of days in January that the flag at the state capitol flew upside down before anyone noticed : 7
Figures cited are the latest available as of February 2017 “Harper’s Index” is a registered trademark.
April Index Sources
1 GoFundMe (Redwood City, Calif.)
2,3 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Washington)
4,5 Kirt von Daacke, University of Virginia (Charlottesville)
6 University of Cape Town (South Africa)
7 Rhodes Trust (Oxford, England)
8,9 No5 Chambers (Birmingham, England)
10 NASA (Houston)
11 Iowa Department of Natural Resources (Mason City)
12 U.S. Department of Energy
13 World Health Organization (Geneva)
14 Clean Air in London
15,16 Swedish Chemicals Agency (Stockholm)
17 athenahealth (Watertown, Mass.)
18 Center for Reproductive Rights (N.Y.C.)
19,20 U.K. Ministry of Defence (London)
21 Air India (N.Y.C.)
22 Survival Systems USA (Groton, Conn.)
23 Colorado Avalanche Information Center (Boulder)
24 Bruce Tremper (Salt Lake City)
25,26 David Stark, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (N.Y.C.)
27 Annenberg Public Policy Center (Philadelphia)
28 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (Washington)
29 Center for Democracy in the Americas (Los Angeles)
30,31 Pew Research Center (Washington)
32 Office of Representative William Lacy Clay (Washington)
33 National Conference of State Legislatures (Denver)
34 Bienert, Miller & Katzman, PLC (San Clemente, Calif.)
35,36 Public Policy Polling (Raleigh, N.C.)
37 Signet Classics (N.Y.C.)
38 Ted Kaye, North American Vexillological Association (Portland, Ore.)
39 Office of Nebraska State Senator Burke Harr (Lincoln)
