Percentage of black Americans in the South who are prevented from voting because they have been convicted of a felony : 13

Percentage of all criminal defendants in the United States who forgo a trial by pleading guilty : 97

Percentage of U.S. convicts exonerated last year who had previously pleaded guilty without a trial : 17

Factor by which it is more expensive to feed a kosher inmate than a non-kosher inmate in Florida : 4.5

Minimum percentage of Florida prisoners requesting kosher meals who are not Jewish : 72

Percentage of white live-in fathers who help their children with their homework daily : 28

Of black live-in fathers who do : 41

Percentage of black male teenagers who don’t have a job : 85

Factor by which the length of the average U.S. job-interview process has increased since 2010 : 2

Percentage of the average “knowledge worker’s” time that is spent reading and writing emails : 28

Portion of U.S. jobs held by humans today that are at high risk of being automated by 2024 : 1/2

Percentage of Americans who want the government to provide a job to any citizen who cannot find work in the private sector : 47

Portion of the global expenditure on social-welfare programs that is spent on Europeans : 1/2

Factor by which the amount raised last year on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter exceeded grant-giving by the NEA : 4

Portion of taxpayer-funded research whose findings are not available to the public for free : 1/2

Percentage change since 2012 in the number of books U.S. schools considered banning : +53

Factor by which a low-income high school student is more likely to drop out than a peer who is not poor : 2.5

Percentage of all U.S. residents over twenty-five who have a postgraduate degree : 11

Of Nigerian immigrants over twenty-five who do : 27

Total number of new workers introduced into South Asian economies each month : 1,000,000

Percentage of Chinese millionaires who plan to emigrate or have already emigrated : 64

Minimum amount that Chinese citizens have moved into offshore bank accounts since 2002 : $1,000,000,000,000

Portion of China’s carbon emissions that is produced by manufacturing goods for export : 1/4

Percentage change since 2008 in the number of earthquakes in Oklahoma registering magnitude 3 or higher : +5,400

Factor by which black applicants for New Jersey hurricane-relief funds are more likely to be rejected than white applicants : 2.5

Number of deaths in traffic accidents for every 100,000 vehicles on the road in developed nations : 11

In Ethiopia : 3,865

Amount a Texas safari club raised in January for the protection of black rhinos by selling a permit to hunt a black rhino : $350,000

Chance an Air Force officer responsible for launching nuclear missiles has been accused of cheating on a proficiency exam : 1 in 5

Number of golf courses worldwide operated by the U.S. military : 151

Cost to Canada of a worldwide poll on superhero powers to help its military win “hearts and minds” : $12,500

Factor by which a straight Canadian male teen is more likely to attempt suicide if his school does not have a gay-straight alliance : 2

Percentage of homeless youth in England who say they are homeless because their parents refuse to house them : 44

Minimum number of child-neglect and -abuse cases filed in Arizona since 2009 that have been closed without investigation : 6,551

Portion of people treated in intensive-care units who develop symptoms of severe psychiatric disorders after being released : 1/2

Percentage change in the number of overweight people in the developing world since 1980 : +261

Factor by which the number of pubic-hair-grooming injuries in the United States increased between 2002 and 2010 : 5

Percentage of divorced low-income men who say they wish they had stayed married : 53

Of divorced low-income women who do : 19

Percentage of single people who say they cannot define a “date” : 69

Figures cited are the latest available as of February 2014. 
“Harper’s Index” is a registered trademark.

April Index Sources

1 The Sentencing Project (Washington)
2 Pretrial Justice Institute (Washington)
3 National Registry of Exonerations (East Lansing, Mich.)
4,5 Florida Department of Corrections (Tallahassee)
6,7 National Center for Health Statistics (Atlanta)
8 Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University (Boston)
9 Glassdoor (Sausalito, Calif.)
10 McKinsey & Company (San Francisco)
11 Oxford Martin School, Oxford University (Oxford, England)
12 YouGov (Palo Alto, Calif.)
13 World Bank (Washington)
14 Kickstarter (Brooklyn); National Endowment for the Arts
15 Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (Washington)
16 Kids’ Right to Read Project (N.Y.C.)
17 National Center for Education Statistics (Washington)
18,19 U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.)
20 World Bank (Washington)
21 Hurun Research Institute (Shanghai)
22 Global Financial Integrity (Washington)
23 Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science (Stanford, Calif.)
24 Oklahoma Geological Survey (Norman)
25 Fair Share Housing Center (Cherry Hill, N.J.)
26,27 World Health Organization (Geneva)
28 Dallas Safari Club
29 U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command (Barksdale AFB, La.)
30 Department of Defense (Arlington, Va.)
31 Defence Research and Development Canada (Ottawa)
32 University of British Columbia (Vancouver)
33 Homeless Link (London)
34 Arizona Child Advocate Response Examination Team (Phoenix)
35 University College London Hospital
36 Overseas Development Institute (London)
37 Benjamin Breyer, University of California, San Francisco
38,39 Center for American Progress (Washington)
40 JDate (Los Angeles); ChristianMingle (Los Angeles)