Estimated number of Americans who have top-secret security clearance : 1,400,000

Average annual cost of detaining an inmate at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay : $900,000

At a supermax prison in the United States : $65,000

Number of terrorist attacks made against diplomatic targets worldwide since 1970 : 2,865

Number of those attacks made against American targets : 520

Chance an African-American child has an incarcerated parent : 1 in 9

Number of years in prison to which a Texas man was sentenced in May for stealing a thirty-five-dollar rack of pork ribs : 50

Percentage of all petitions to hear a case the Supreme Court has granted in the past three years : 1

Percentage of petitions it has granted that were supported by an amicus brief from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce : 32

Factor by which the average white U.S. family was wealthier than the average non-white U.S. family before the recession : 4

Factor by which it is now : 6

Percentage of global GDP, adjusted for purchasing power, produced by developing economies in 1980 : 31

Today : 50

Net amount contributed to Medicare by immigrants between 2002 and 2009 : $115,000,000,000

Net amount drawn out by native-born citizens over the same period : $28,000,000,000

Average amount a Water Valley, Mississippi, hospital bills Medicare for treating pneumonia with no complications : $4,552

Average amount a Philadelphia hospital does : $79,007

Portion of North American doctors who say they would prescribe marijuana to cancer patients if permitted : 3/4

Amount paid at a May auction for an Apple-1 computer, designed in 1976 : $671,400

Number of times New Zealand’s Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages has rejected a baby name since 2001 : 311

Number of times it has rejected the name Justice : 62

Portion of people killed by Australian police since 1989 who were mentally ill : 1/2

Percentage of authorized U.S. firearms dealers the ATF hasn’t inspected in the past five years : 58

Chance a U.S. youth considered at risk for suicide lives in a home with a gun : 1 in 5

Portion of young people attempting suicide without a gun who die from the attempt : 1/10

Of those attempting suicide with a gun who do : 9/10

Number of Americans who died in motor-vehicle accidents in 2010 : 33,687

Who died of suicide : 38,364

Estimated number of fingers lost to table saws annually : 4,000

Percentage of men in dual-income marriages who said they struggled with work-family conflict in 1977 : 35

Who say they do today : 60

Portion of live-in domestic workers who make less than minimum wage : 2/3

Who are required to work during their scheduled time off : 3/5

Percentage change in the number of Walmart stores nationwide since 2008 : +13

In the size of Walmart’s retail workforce : 0

Estimated number of homeowners whose foreclosure-abuse settlements were affected in May by a “clerical error” : 96,000

Amount these homeowners were underpaid : $44,600,000

Number of applicants for 350 investment-banking internships Goldman Sachs offered to undergraduates this summer : 17,000

Average cost after financial aid to attend NYU for a freshman from a family making $30,000 a year or less : $25,462

Percentage of American cats that are overweight : 58

August Index Sources

1 Office of the Director of National Intelligence (Tysons Corner, Va.)
2,3 Center for American Progress (Washington)
4,5 National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (College Park, Md.)
6 Pew Research Center’s Economic Mobility Project (Washington)
7 McLennan County District Attorney’s Office (Waco, Texas)
8,9 Adam D. Chandler (Washington)
10,11 The Urban Institute (Washington)
12,13 International Monetary Fund (Washington)
14,15 Leah Zallman, Harvard Medical School (Cambridge, Mass.)
16,17 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Washington)
18 New England Journal of Medicine (Boston)
19 The Best Things (Herndon, Va.)
20,21 New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (Wellington)
22 Australian Institute of Criminology (Canberra)
23 U.S. Department of Justice
24–26 Stephen J. Teach (Washington)
27,28 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta)
29 Consumer Product Safety Commission (Rockville, Md.)
30,31 Families and Work Institute (N.Y.C.)
32,33 National Domestic Workers Alliance (N.Y.C.)
34,35 Walmart (Bittenville, Ark.)
36,37 Hill+Knowlton Strategies (Dallas)
38 Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (N.Y.C.)
39 National Center for Education Statistics
40 Association for Pet Obesity Prevention (Calabash, N.C.)