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Days after high school journalists in Kansas revealed inconsistencies in their principal’s résumé that she resigned : 4

Average acceptance rate at New York City public high schools with test-based admission : 2.7

At Ivy League universities : 8.0

Portion of Oklahoma school districts that have switched to four-day weeks because of budget cuts : 1/5

Portion of U.S. teachers hired today who are projected to pay more into their pensions than they will get back : 3/4

Percentage of Americans who estimate they will need at least $1,000,000 to retire : 37

Of Americans aged 55 and older with retirement plans whose accounts contain more than $250,000 : 35

Portion of American workers who are looking for a new job : 1/2

Percentage increase since last year in the number of U.S. taxpayers who fear an IRS audit : 64

Number of successive years that the IRS has audited fewer people than it did the year before : 7

Estimated amount the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is spending to switch from silver- to gold-colored belt buckles : $100,000

Amount awarded to wrongfully convicted individuals for each year they spent in a Texas state prison : $80,000

In a Wisconsin state prison : $5,000

Number of U.S. states in which wrongfully convicted state prisoners aren’t entitled to monetary compensation : 18

Number of U.S. states in which parents can be billed for the cost of their child’s incarceration : 47

Age at which Filipino children could be found criminally culpable, under a proposed law : 9

Percentage of Republicans living within 350 miles of Mexico who oppose the construction of a border wall : 34

Of Republicans living farther than 350 miles from Mexico who do : 21

Percentage of invitees from Africa to a U.S. conference on African economic development who were denied visas : 100

Percentage increase last year in the number of Americans renouncing their citizenship : 26

Percentage increase since 2013 in the number of millionaires migrating to another country : 61

Rank of France among countries that millionaires are leaving : 1

Of Australia among countries that they are moving to : 1

Number of weather records broken in Australia last summer : 205

Minimum number of U.S. states in which spring arrived early this year : 35

Number of years in a row for which global greenhouse gas emissions have remained stable : 3

Date on which a Maine lawmaker introduced a bill that would bar discrimination against climate change skeptics : 3/2/2017

Estimated number of songbirds killed last fall in Cyprus for human consumption : 2,200,000

Number of endangered mammal species whose primary threats include being hunted by humans for food : 301

Portion of South Sudan’s population that is expected to lack a reliable food source this summer : 1/2

Amount the country was charging professional foreign aid workers for visas before the policy was suspended in April : $10,000

Minimum number of Haitians killed since October 2010 in a cholera epidemic introduced by U.N. peacekeepers : 9,439

Portion of U.N. member states that have donated to a fund to combat the epidemic : 7/193

Number of countries in which U.S. Special Operations Forces were operating in March : 102

Portion of artifacts unearthed this year at a World War I–era British Army barracks in Israel that were liquor bottles : 7/10

Minimum number of times President Erdo gan of Turkey has unfavorably compared other countries with Nazi Germany : 4

Of times he has favorably compared Turkey with Nazi Germany : 1

Minimum number of cemeteries the Trump Organization has received approval to build in New Jersey : 2

Odds on an online bet that Donald Trump will win the Nobel Peace Prize this year : 20:1

That he will announce the existence of aliens : 20:1

Figures cited are the latest available as of April 2017.

“Harper’s Index” is a registered trademark.


June Index Sources

1 Pittsburg High School Student Publications (Kan.)
2 New York City Department of Education
3 Harper’s research
4 Oklahoma State Department of Education (Oklahoma City)
5 Urban Institute (Washington)
6,7 Employee Benefit Research Institute (Washington)
8 Gallup (Washington)
9 Rasmussen Reports (Asbury Park, N.J.)
10 Internal Revenue Service (Washington)
11 Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
12,13 National Registry of Exonerations (Irvine, Calif.)
14 The Innocence Project (N.Y.C.)
15 The Marshall Project (N.Y.C.)
16 Embassy of the Philippines (Washington)
17,18 Pew Research Center (Washington)
19 African Global Economic and Development Summit (Diamond Bar, Calif.)
20 Internal Revenue Service
21–23 New World Wealth (Johannesburg)
24 Climate Council (Sydney)
25 USA National Phenology Network (Tucson, Ariz.)
26 International Energy Agency (Paris)
27 Maine State Legislature (Augusta)
28 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (London)
29 William Ripple, Oregon State University (Corvallis)
30 World Food Program (Nairobi, Kenya)
31 Embassy of the Republic of South Sudan (Washington)
32 Philip Alston, New York University School of Law
33 United Nations (N.Y.C.)
34 U.S. Special Operations Command (Tampa, Fla.)
35 Israel Antiquities Authority (Ramat Gan)
36,37 Harper’s research
38 Bedminster Township Land Use Board (N.J.)
39 Paddy Power (Dublin)
40 Ladbrokes (London)


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