10/98Price of a set of How to Build Your Own Casket instructions, from Homemade Caskets of California: $19.50
5/85Percentage of all cases of measles in the United States that occurred on college campuses in 1980: 1.5
6/88Price of Video Dog, a tape offering the “experience of owning a pet without the mess and inconvenience”: $19.95
7/91Price of an American flag necktie that plays “The Star-Spangled Banner,” from a Bradenton, Florida, company: $19.95
5/92Price of Video Catnip, a 25-minute video of birds, squirrels, and chipmunks, from Pet Avision: $19.95
5/93Price of a 2-ounce bottle of Starclone, a cologne made from the sweat of Sammy Kershaw, a country singer: $19.95
6/94Price of one cubic foot of Whitewater dirt, from the Whitewater Development Company, digging not included: $19.95
6/96Price of Forecast for Victory, a Weather Channel video exploring weather’s “intriguing role” in World War II: $19.95
7/05Price for a set of six Harley Davidson ‒brand votive candles: $19.95
In the Soviet Union: 4
In Switzerland: 20
3/85Average number of maggots the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permits per 100 grams of canned mushrooms: 20
6/85Percentage of Americans who say they would rather have a tooth pulled than take a car in for repairs: 20
8/85Percentage of families in New York City with annual incomes over $50,000 that are black: 7
Who are retired today: 20
12/92Percentage by which the average pay at foreign-owned companies in the U.S. exceeds pay at U.S. companies here: 20
4/93Percentage of Americans who are willing to “accept limits on what health care is available to the average person”: 20
3/94Ratio of the amount Americans believe is spent on U.S. foreign aid each year to the amount that is actually spent: 20:1
12/86Estimated number of people in the Netherlands who die at their own request every day: 20
4/88Amount of time, since last April, that Americans spent on hold while calling the IRS (in years): 20
8/89Percentage of men earning more than $50,000 a year who say they have had at least six affairs with co-workers: 20
11/89Estimated percentage increase in sales of horseshoes since George Bush took office: 20
12/89Number of U.S. companies financed with junk bonds that have failed to meet loan obligations this year: 20
Number of developing countries that have failed to meet loan obligations to the World Bank this year: 9
12/89Number of evangelical broadcast ministries that are currently being investigated by the IRS: 20
2/90Percentage of American twenty-one-year-olds who can read a bus schedule: 20
11/90Airtime NBC Nightly News devoted in August to an interview with Omar Sharif about U.S.-Arab relations, in seconds: 20
12/90Amount the Israeli government plans to charge Palestinians in the Occupied Territories for a gas mask: $20
1/91Number of Fortune 500 companies whose personnel departments have employed genetic screening or monitoring: 20
3/91Price of a pound of smut, a fungus that lives on corn kernels, from Grace’s Marketplace in New York City: $20
7/92Number of the 24 largest industrialized nations that have tightened their restrictions on imports since 1980: 20
8/92Bonus the Chinese government pays selected scholars and scientists each month to discourage emigration: $20
8/92Percentage of French women who do not view being asked to undress for a job interview as sexual harassment: 20
8/92Average percentage change in the GNP during each four-year Democratic administration since 1949: +20
Average percentage change in the GNP during each four-year Republican administration: -9
8/92Number of extra dancers a Houston topless bar plans to hire during the Republican Convention this month: 20
2/94Price of an “authentic, preworn” plaid flannel shirt by mail order from Blowhole Productions of Seattle: $20
3/94Average number of “pet bereavement” clients seen each week last year by Diane Kelly, a California therapist: 20
9/94Ratio of the average libel award won in a U.S. court since 1990 to the average amount paid after appeal: 20:1
10/95Hours of Newt Gingrich lectures to be broadcast in Phoenix jails this year as part of the sheriff’s “get tough” campaign: 20
11/95Change since February in the percentage of black Americans who say they have an unfavorable opinion of Colin Powell: +20
2/96Number of years Serbian leader Radovan Karadžić spent practicing psychiatry: 20
Percentage today: 13
3/97Ratio of federal research funds spent last year on AIDS to those spent on Alzheimer’s, per patient: 20:1
5/97Hourly rate charged by Mighty Moms, a Minnesota group that confronts rowdy mall teens with “verbal judo”: $20
10/97Rounds by which each gun’s magazine capacity will have to be reduced to conform with U.S. law: 20
1/98Percentage of Canadian adults under the age of 25 who believe that Neil Armstrong was the first Canadian in space: 10
Percentage who believe that Allen Ginsberg was Canadian: 20
8/98Rank of Detroit, among the 20 largest U.S. cities, in municipal spending on public transportation: 20
10/98Average percentage points by which a male sports fan’s testosterone level rises when his team wins: 20
Average points by which it falls when they lose: 20
9/99Maximum amount of time that a recent Texas bill proposed holding suspects before assigning a lawyer, in days: 20
6/01Performance of Ricky Martin in bed, on a scale of one to ten, according to his new girlfriend: 20
8/01Percentage of the working residents of Del Rio, Texas, who are directly employed in the war on drugs: 20
11/01Rank of gas mileage among the 35 things Americans say they look for in buying a new car or truck: 20
12/01Number of mimes Guatemala’s transit department hired last April to administer driver “education” at busy intersections: 20
12/01Months after the millennium that Dublin plans to complete the erection of its 394-foot Millennium Spike: 20
4/02Minimum number of calls the F.B.I. received last winter from Utah residents claiming to have seen Osama bin Laden: 20
2/03Minimum number of U.S. cities, towns, and counties that have passed resolutions opposing the USA Patriot Act: 20
2/03Number of the 44 U.S. residents detained as “potential grand jury witnesses” in terrorism cases who have yet to testify: 20
2/03Percentage of black South Africans who now have a positive view of the way their country was governed under apartheid: 20
2/03Number of female characters with supernatural powers on major U.S. network-television programs last season: 20
4/04Estimated number of years that guards at the top U.S. nuclear storehouse have cheated during anti-terrorism drills: 20
5/04Percentage of the 958 same-sex unions granted to Vermont residents since July 2000 that have since been dissolved: 3
7/04Percentage change between 2001 and 2002 in the number of Teamster officials earning six-figure salaries: +20
8/04Number of the 73 firms participating in the Medicare discount drug program that have been investigated since 2000: 20
9/04Minimum number of Congress members Sun Myung Moon claims attended his March coronation as the “King of Peace”: 20
9/04Number of HealthSouth executives charged with conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, or lying since March 2003: 20
Number who have pled guilty: 17
5/05Number of “certified laughter leaders” employed by the U.S. Army to help families of reservists: 20
6/05Average percentage by which the power of the male heart declines between the ages of 18 and 75: 20
10/05Number of U.S. states where bestiality is legal: 20
1/06Number of times Saddam Hussein should be executed each day, according to Iraq’s new president: 20
11/06Percentage change since 1998 in the average amount of nicotine that cigarettes deliver to the lungs: +10
Percentage change for Kool menthol cigarettes: +20
11/06Average number of books written by each French president since World War II: 8
Average by U.S. presidents: 4
Number written by Jimmy Carter: 20
3/07Number of consecutive months that the American workforce has spent more than its take-home pay: 20
Number of previous months since the Depression that this had been the case: 0
3/07Amount that Iran’s tourism ministry says it pays travel agents for every Westerner they bring to the country: $20
1/08Number of nations where more than 30 percent of the legislature is currently composed of women: 20
Number where more than 40 percent is: 3
6/08Percentage change since last year in the number of people receiving assistance from U.S. food banks: +20
Percentage change since then in the amount of food that the federal government has donated to the banks: –9
1/09Minimum number of calls the FBI received in fall 2001 from Utah residents claiming to have seen Osama bin Laden: 20
Per 100,000 Americans between the ages of 75 and 84: 20.3
7/86Percentage of babies born to married American women in 1965 that were unwanted: 20.5
1/85Percentage of Forbes 500 chief executive officers in 1983 who had a “technical background”: 20.6
1/97Average figure given by Americans when asked to estimate what percentage of the population is unemployed: 20.6
Percentage of Americans who are actually unemployed: 5.2
3/86Percentage of adults who say they were told the facts of life by their mother: 21
10/89Percentage decrease, since June 1985, in funds raised by the Democratic National Committee: 14
Percentage decrease in funds raised by the Republican National Committee: 21
12/90Number of the 206 endowed professorships at M.I.T. that have been funded by Japanese companies: 21
2/91Percentage of preschool children who say that if they were president they would eat ice cream for every meal: 21
5/92Percentage of U.S. Department of Agriculture employees who provide services to farmers: 21
10/92Number of the 28 millionaires in the U.S. Senate who are Democrats: 21
4/93Number of Porsches pawned last year at Collateral Lender of Beverly Hills: 21
5/93Average number of laps around the new White House jogging track required to burn off the calories in one Big Mac: 21
4/94Percentage of Germans who believe the world would ‘be a better place “if everyone were like the Germans”: 21
7/94Percentage of Russians who say they would like to return to their country’s “pre-1985 situation”: 21
4/95Number of the 29 divorced members of the House of Representatives who are Democrats: 21
3/96Number of countries to which the U.S. has officially deployed combat ground troops since 1950: 21
Portion of these from which U.S. troops have been withdrawn: 1/2
7/96Ratio of Americans who die from smoking-related illnesses each year to those who die as a result of illegal-drug use: 21:1
11/96Percentage change in the number of gays discharged since Clinton initiated his “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy: +21
9/97Rank of adults under 30 and those over 70 among the age groups most in favor of making cigarettes illegal: 2,1
5/98Percentage of violent offenders in state prisons whose crime was committed under the influence of alcohol alone: 21
11/99Percentage points by which voter turnout for Russia’s last national election exceeded U.S. turnout in 1996: 21
5/00Rank of Bangladesh and Poland among countries accounting for the largest number of U.N. peacekeepers deployed last fall: 2,1
11/00Number of felons enlisted from an Ohio halfway house last July as extras in the Cincinnati Opera’s production of Aida: 21
11/00Hours after an Australian fisherman fell overboard in August that his head was found in the belly of a 98-pound cod: 21
4/01Rank of Oasis singer Liam Gallagher among public figures most reviled by Britons: 3
Rank of Slobodan Milosevic and Adolf Hitler, respectively: 2,1
5/01Average percentage by which an amateur stock website’s forecast was incorrect: 21
7/01Number of Russian news organizations that were sent a press release in February touting a fake company: 21
10/01Percentage of Russian nuclear scientists who say they are willing to work on another country’s missile-defense program: 21
6/02Days the University of Georgia heated its campus last winter by burning chicken fat and other leftover food grease: 21
4/03Number of current and former national leaders slated for war-crimes prosecution by Belgium’s high court: 21
Number of current officeholders left on the list after the court granted Israel’s Ariel Sharon immunity in January: 15
7/03Years by which the 1831 invention of the electric dynamo preceded the first documented use of the word “boredom”: 21
3/04Months after the Justice Department began investigating Enron in 2001 that an Enron executive was jailed: 21
10/04Number of Ohio election boards being sued over erroneously informing parolees that they may not vote: 21
7/05Average percentage of the U.K. population that Britons believe to be immigrants: 21
Actual percentage: 8
5/07Rank of Britain among twenty-one rich countries the U.N. ranked this year for “child well-being”: 21
Rank of the United States: 20
2/09Number of the four Republican-primary “rivals” in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet who left by the end of his first term: 3
Months into his first term that Lincoln told a friend his cabinet was “on the brink of destruction”: 21
5/96Price of a ten-inch Chia Garcia, a bust of Jerry Garcia seeded to sprout green hair: $21.95
3/85Percentage of the annual U.S. potato crop that is french fried: 22
10/86Average percentage of income Americans earning $200,000 or more will pay under the new tax bill: 22
Average percentage they pay today: 22
7/89Average number of times an American opens the refrigerator each day: 22
5/91Percentage of fast-food restaurant workers who admit to doing “slow, sloppy work on purpose”: 22
8/91Number of times the Soviet Union has voted with the United States in the UN General Assembly since 1989: 22
6/92Estimated number of cans of Diet Pepsi an Olympic athlete could consume without failing the USOC’s drug test: 22
4/94Total tax deductions Bill Clinton has claimed since 1986 on charitable donations of used underwear: $22
7/94Number of Thomas Jefferson’s slaves who escaped to join the British during the American Revolution: 22
1/96Purity of the gold New York Life Insurance used last year to gild its headquarters’ dome, in karats: 22
10/96Years since states were last allowed to distribute federal welfare funds to able-bodied, childless adults: 22
1/97Percentage change between 1980 and 1992 in the number of HIV-negative Americans who died of infectious diseases: +22
3/97Percentage change since 1990 in the number of Americans filing for personal bankruptcy: +22
4/97Estimated percentage change in the size of Canada’s Native-American population since 1500: +22
Estimated percentage change since then in the size of the Native-American population of the U.S.: -76
7/97Percentage of American smokers who say that tobacco companies are to blame for smoking-related illnesses: 13
Percentage of Americans who have never smoked who say this: 22
9/97Number of former or sitting Chicago aldermen convicted of a federal crime in the last 25 years: 22
3/99Percentage by which Iraq’s oil sales last year fell short of the maximum allowed under U.N. sanctions: 22
4/02Months that a Denver bookstore has been refusing court orders to identify a buyer of a book about making illegal drugs: 22
5/03Factor by which industry funding for university biomedical research has increased since 1980: 22
7/03Number of years Neil Bush was married before asking his wife for a divorce via email last summer: 22
8/03Number of magicians who won damages from Brazil’s largest TV network in May after their tricks were revealed on the air: 22
9/03Months after the first manned flight that Wilbur Wright identified “war” as a potential use for airplanes: 22
2/04Percentage increase since 1999 in U.S. households in which there was hunger due to poverty during the year: 22
11/04Days after the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that Dick Cheney married, securing a draft deferment: 22
4/06Estimated labor cost of complying with the U.S. tax code each year, expressed as a percentage of U.S. tax receipts: 22
5/06Number of Harlequin novels published last year that feature love between a Western woman and an Arab sheikh: 15
Number by 2008 that will feature NASCAR races: 22
3/09Total number of guns that five of the six candidates for RNC chairman bragged about owning during their January debate: 22
Number of the candidates who said he had “too many to count”: 1
11/85Percentage of federal district court judges appointed by President Carter who are millionaires: 4
11/85Weekly sales per square foot near the cash registers in the average supermarket: $22.80
Per square foot elsewhere in the store: $7.76
3/96Price of a potted four-leaf clover, from 1-800-BIG-LUCK: $22.95
By Protestants: 5
The average New Englander: 23