Percentage by which a marijuana user is likelier than others to eat fast food five or more times in a given week : 75

Amount the US pharmaceutical industry spent in 2016 on ads for prescription drugs : $6,400,000,000

Number of countries in which direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads are legal : 2

Percentage of moisturizers sold in the United States as “fragrance-free” that contain a fragrance : 45

Of moisturizers sold as “hypoallergenic” that contain a common allergen : 83

Estimated chance that a white woman in Washington, D.C., has a tanning-salon addiction : 1 in 5

Percentage change between 2005 and 2014 in the number of French people undergoing weight-loss surgery : +269

Factor by which an obese woman is less likely than other candidates in France to be offered a job interview : 6

Percentage of applicants for dog-walking jobs through the app Wag! who are successful : 5

Of recently graduated applicants for jobs at Goldman Sachs who are : 4

Percentage by which white job applicants in the United States were preferred over black applicants in 1989 : 36

In 2015 : 36

Percentage of black Americans earning less than $25,000 a year who say they have been called a racial slur : 40

Of black Americans earning more than $75,000 : 65

Percentage of US Latinos who would support a law criminalizing offensive speech about white people : 47

Of US whites : 26

Percentage of US whites who believe white Americans are discriminated against : 55

Who say they’ve experienced discrimination themselves : 21

Amount white supremacist Richard Spencer paid the University of Florida to give a speech last October : $10,564

Estimated amount the university paid for security : $600,000

Percentage of Asian-American doctors who have had a patient request a different physician because of their ethnicity : 22

Percentages of Democrats and Republicans who say workplace sexual harassment is a very serious problem in Hollywood : 55,58

In the rest of the country : 45,22
Percentage of news stories about Donald Trump during his first sixty days in office that were positive : 5

Percentage of 2016 Clinton voters who think it’s hard to be friends with Trump voters : 61

Of Trump voters who think it’s hard to be friends with Clinton voters : 34

Factor by which George W. Bush’s popularity among Democrats has increased since 2009 : 4

Average number of days the National Rifle Association waits to tweet after a major mass shooting : 6.3

Number of Texas inmates who donated money for Hurricane Harvey relief : 6,663

Number of days after the hurricane for which Texas prisoners lacked adequate food and water : 33

Portion of voting-age Floridians who have been disenfranchised because of felony convictions : 1/10

Percentage of youth library cards in New York City that were suspended due to overdue books before an October amnesty : 17

Total amount of debt that was forgiven : $2,250,000

Largest single fine : $1,422.69
Date on which New York City repealed a law requiring bars to have a license to allow dancing : 10/31/2017

Estimated percentage of bars that had such a license : 0.4

Amount a Canadian man was fined for singing “Everybody Dance Now” too loudly in his car : $117

Number of animated Jackie Chan Adventures episodes found on Osama bin Laden’s computer : 33

Of crocheting videos : 29

Figures cited are the latest available as of November 2017.

“Harper’s Index” is a registered trademark.

January Index Sources

1 Consumer Research Around Cannabis (Orlando, Fla.)
2 Kantar Media (NYC)
3 National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, Md.)
4,5 Shuai Xu, Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.)
6 Darren Mays, Georgetown University (Washington)
7 Tarek Debs, Hôpital l’Archet 2 (Nice, France)
8 Jean-Francois Amadieu, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne
9 Dini von Muefing Communications (NYC)
10 Goldman Sachs (NYC)
11,12 Lincoln Quillian, Northwestern University
13,14 Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (Boston)
15,16 Cato Institute (Washington)
17,18 Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
19,20 University of Florida (Gainesville)
21 Medscape (NYC)
22,23 YouGov (Redwood City, Calif.)
24 Pew Research Center (Washington)
25,26 Cato Institute
27 Gallup (Atlanta)
28 Harper’s research
29 Texas Department of Criminal Justice (Huntsville)
30 National Lawyers Guild (NYC)
31 Sentencing Project (Washington)
32–34 New York Public Library
35,36 Office of the Mayor of New York City
37 Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal
38,39 US Central Intelligence Agency/Harper’s research.