3/88Number of Americans 65 or older who are arrested each day for drunkenness and disorderly conduct: 63
4/90Percentage of men living in Bangladesh who live past the age of 65: 55
9/90Change, since 1972, in the percentage of employed American men who have an employer-financed pension plan: -5
Change in the percentage of employed American women who do: +5
11/91Average number of drugs prescribed each year to an American over 60: 16
11/91Percentage of Americans over 60 who say that spandex clothing is “in”: 49
2/93Percentage change, since last year, in the number of Americans who are older than the president: +142
7/93Chances that an adult Medicaid patient under the age of 65 has been turned away by a doctor or hospital: 1 in 5
4/95Percentage of Americans over the age of 65 who say that color is a “very important” factor in buying underwear: 30
Percentage of American adults under the age of 30 who say this: 11
5/95Membership of the British Old Bags Club, a group of middle-aged divorcees: 450
10/96Percentage of Dan Rostenkowski’s congressional pension benefits he will forfeit during his stay in prison this year: 0
11/96Ratio of the amount the federal government spent last year on Americans under 18 to those over 65: 1:5
9/96Rank of the elderly among age groups most likely to believe Bob Dole’s age would make him a “less able” president: 1
Days after Dole’s daughter was laid off from work last year that she began campaigning for her father: 2
1/97Percentage of elderly Medicare patients in fee-for-service plans whose health declined during a four-year study: 28
8/97Estimated number of former Nazi SS officers or their dependents receiving a pension from the German government: 65,000
Number of them who live in the U.S.: 3,377
10/98Chance that a California nursing home has been cited for violations “causing death or life-threatening harm” to patients: 1 in 3
12/98Years in prison to which a former CIA agent was sentenced last fall for attempting to extort $1 million from the agency: 5
9/98Chance that a cancer patient in a nursing home over the age of 85 does not receive adequate pain medication: 1 in 3
9/98Estimated number of American senior citizens who played tackle football last year: 47,000
1/99Number of emergency-room visits in 1997 by elderly Americans injured while snowboarding: 75
4/99Percentage of Chile’s spending on its privatized pension system that goes toward administration: 13
Percentage of spending last year on the U.S. Social Security system that did: 1
9/99Average number of different drug prescriptions filled each year by an American over the age of 74: 12
8/00Minimum amount President Clinton’s pension and staff will cost U.S. taxpayers if his life span is average: $6,072,000
9/00Percentage change since 1990 in the number of deaths from accidental poisoning among elderly Americans: -10
Percentage change since then in the number of such deaths among Americans between the ages of 45 and 64: +188
9/01Chance that an eighty-year-old American is left-handed: 1 in 100
Chance that a ten-year-old is: 1 in 7
11/02Percentage of their assets that Zimbabwe’s private pension funds are required to invest in government treasury bills: 45
6/02Weeks during which the U.S. government suspended investment of federal workers’ pension funds this year: 2
6/03Chance that a U.S. senior citizen reports having skipped medications or not filled prescriptions because of cost: 1 in 5
11/04Percentage of Britons over the age of 50 who have hurt themselves attempting to open product packaging: 71
12/04Value of the Halliburton shares owned by New York City’s Fire Department Pension Fund: $3,359,095
4/05Ratio of active workers at General Motors to retirees on its pension rolls: 2:5
4/05Percentage of Social Security contributions that go toward administrative costs: 0.6
Percentage last year: 19
2/06Factor by which the total amount that U.S. pension plans have invested in hedge funds today exceeds that in 1990: 100
2/06Number of centenarians that the U.S. census counted in 2000: 50,740
Projected number it will count in 2050: 1,149,500
12/07Chance that an American under the age of 65 went without health insurance at some point during the past two years: 1 in 3
5/07Percentage of Americans in February who said they would be unlikely to vote for a candidate who has been divorced twice: 26
Percentage who said they would be unlikely to vote for a 72-year-old: 58
Percentage who said they would be unlikely to vote for an African American or a smoker, respectively: 6, 21
9/07Average number of years by which the eight Democratic candidates are older than their spouses: 9
Average number of years by which the nine Republican candidates are: 3
Number of years that Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich are, respectively: 24, 23