5/93Chances that a retired Social Security recipient has received more in benefits than he or she contributed: 4 in 5

U.S. House Ways and Means Committee

5/93Average pension provided by a private U.S. company last year, expressed as a portion of the average military pension: 1/2

U.S. Department of Labor/U.S. Department of Defense

5/93Pentagon spending last year on unnecessary items due to inventory errors, according to the GAO: $40,000,000,000

U.S. General Accounting Office

5/93Amount the federal government spent each day last year on “intelligence”: $79,000,000

Neil A. Lewis, New York Times (Washington)

5/93Amount President Clinton has proposed cutting from the budget of the CIA: 0

White House

5/93Percentage of U.S. spies in East Germany since 1948 who proved to be double agents, according to the CIA: 100

Anonymous former CIA analyst (Washington)

5/93Number of FBI foreign counterintelligence agents reassigned to U.S. violent-crime investigations last year: 250

U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation

5/93Number of states that have adopted anti-stalking laws since 1990: 31

National Victim Center (Arlington, Va.)

5/93Percentage of female congressional staffers who say they have been sexually harassed by a congressman: 11

Washington Post poll

5/93Number of minutes of network evening news devoted to Hillary Rodham Clinton in the first ten weeks of 1993: 57

“Tyndall Report” (N.Y.C.)

    Number devoted to Vice President Al Gore: 4

“Tyndall Report” (N.Y.C.)

5/93Ratio of the average thickness of a man’s skin to that of a woman: 4:3

Sheldon Pinnell, Duke University (Durham, N.C.)

5/93Average number of laps around the new White House jogging track required to burn off the calories in one Big Mac: 21

Harper’s research

5/93Percentage of Americans who would accept a new 50¢ tax on a six-pack of beer to help finance health-care reform: 87

NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll (Washington)

5/93Ratio of overhead cost per client of a private health insurer to that of Medicare and Medicaid: 3:1

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.)/Physicians for a National Health Program (Chicago)

5/93Chances that an American over the age of 45 is taking a prescription drug: 2 in 3

American Association of Retired Persons (Washington)

5/93Average percentage increase in a wife’s blood pressure during an argument with her husband: 6

Timothy Smith, University of Utah (Salt Lake City)

    Average percentage increase in a husband’s blood pressure during an argument with his wife: 14

Timothy Smith, University of Utah (Salt Lake City)

5/93Estimated amount by which the salary of a US. executive over 6 feet tall will exceed that of one under 5‘5”: $4,200

Jo Olson, University of Pittsburgh

5/93Chances that an American office worker has his or her own office: 1 in 3

Louis Harris and Associates (N.Y.C.)

    Chances that a Japanese office worker does: 1 in 33

Louis Harris and Associates (N.Y.C.)

5/93Square feet of new federal office space that will be built in Manhattan this year: 921,000

General Services Administration (N.Y.C.)

5/93Square feet of office space in Manhattan that is currently vacant: 66,000,000

Cushman & Wakefield (N.Y.C.)

5/93Number of deeds to a square inch of land in each of the fifty states bought by Chinese citizens last year: 100,000

American Acres (N.Y.C.)

5/93Number of Avon ladies in China: 15,000

Avon Products (N.Y.C.)

5/93Price of a month’s supply of African Special, a skin-darkening formula sold in Japan: $315

Time (Tokyo)

5/93Average distance between two conversing people that black Americans consider comfortable, in inches: 22

Patrick Connolly, University of Iowa (Iowa City)

    Average distance that white Americans consider comfortable, in inches: 27

Patrick Connolly, University of Iowa (Iowa City)

5/93Membership of Philadelphia’s Silent Meeting Club, at whose gatherings talking is forbidden: 80

Silent Meeting Club (Philadelphia)

5/93Chances that a viewer of the Weather Channel watches for more than 27 minutes at a time: 1 in 5

Weather Channel (Atlanta)

5/93Rank of May among months with the greatest U.S. rainfall: 1

National Climatic Data Center (Asheville, N.C.)

5/93Rank of May among months in which the greatest number of flowers at New York’s Botanical Garden are in full bloom: 1

New York Botanical Garden (Bronx)

5/93Total amount spent on candy last Mother’s Day, per American mother: $4.70

National Confectioners Association (Mclean, Va.)/U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.)

5/93Hip measurement, in inches, of a size-eight dress sold in the United States last year: 38

Bruno Ferri, Wolf Form Co. (N.Y.C.)

    Hip measurement of a size-eight dress sold sixty years ago: 33.5

Bruno Ferri, Wolf Form Co. (N.Y.C.)

5/93Number of cardigan sweaters worn by Mr. Rogers on his TV show since 1968: 24

Family Communications (Pittsburgh)

5/93Number of Donahue shows broadcast since 1967 devoted to transsexualism and cross-dressing: 16

Donahue (N.Y.C.)

5/93Price of a 2-ounce bottle of Starclone, a cologne made from the sweat of Sammy Kershaw, a country singer: $19.95

Sammy Kershaw’s Starclone (Charlotte, N.C.)

5/93Number of portraits of Zsa Zsa Gabor on display in her homes: 15

Laura Morris, Collins Publishers (San Francisco)

5/93Number of registered dogs in Los Angeles named Aaron Spelling: 1

Steve Harvey, Los Angeles Times