Percentage increase from 2016 to 2017 in incidents of piracy
in the Caribbean : 163
Chance that a migrant crossing the Mediterranean this year would be killed in transit : 1 in 18
That a migrant crossing it last year would be : 1 in 42
Number of cases filed by the Justice Department last year to denaturalize US citizens : 30
Number of new agents ICE plans to hire next year to investigate
possible citizenship fraud : 300
Estimated number of voters purged from Georgia’s voter rolls
from 2008 to 2012 : 750,000
From 2012 to 2016 : 1,500,000
Percentage of white US Congress members that Amazon’s facial recognition software matched incorrectly with mug shots : 4
Of non-white Congress members : 10
Percentage of Americans who say it’s appropriate to use gene editing to
make babies more intelligent : 19
Portion of US adults who think they are more intelligent than their partners : 1/4
Who think they are less intelligent : 1/10
Percentage of California wildfires that are started by people : 95
That are deliberately started by people : 7
Percentage of California homeowners who have earthquake insurance : 13
Percentage chance that an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 or higher will hit California in the next thirty years : 99.5
Height of Bolivia’s new presidential residence, in stories : 29
Rank of the building among the tallest in Bolivia : 3
Factor by which the average length of an economics paper published in an academic journal has increased since 1970 : 3.7
Percentage change from 2000 to 2017 in US consumer spending on music : +25
Percentage of US music-industry revenue that is received by musicians : 12
Portion of NBA revenue that goes to players : 1/2
Of WNBA revenue : 1/5
Age at which a woman’s “desirability” peaks on online dating sites : 18
At which a man’s “desirability” peaks : 50
Percentage of homosexual relationships that begin online : 65
Of heterosexual relationships that do : 38
Chance a cohabitating US adult says their sex life has been impacted by their partner’s bedtime phone use : 1 in 3
Percentage of teenagers who “often” find their parents distracted by their
phones during conversations : 14
Who “sometimes” do : 37
Percentage of US teenagers who say they are taking steps to cut back
on social media use : 57
Percentage of UK teenagers who say they wouldn’t care if social media
had never been invented : 62
Number of US counties in which no local newspaper is available : 176
In which only one is available : 1,449
Estimated number of US newspaper jobs lost since the year 2000 : 241,000
Percentage of Americans with incomes over $1 million whose tax returns were audited in 2012 : 12.1
Whose returns were audited last year : 4.4
Monthly revenue generated by a down-vest-and-jacket vending machine at San Francisco International Airport : $10,000
Percentage of the US population with incomes under $150,000 who have “no interest” in joining the upper class : 57
November Index Sources
1 One Earth Future (Broomfield, Colo.)
2, 3 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Washington)
4 US Department of Justice
5 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
6, 7 Brennan Center for Justice (NYC)
8, 9 ACLU of Northern California (Sacramento)
10 Pew Research Center (Washington)
11, 12 YouGov (NYC)
13, 14 California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Sacramento)
15 California Department of Insurance (Sacramento)
16 US Geological Survey (Golden, Colo.)
17 US Embassy in Bolivia (La Paz)
18 Emporis (Hamburg, Germany)
19 David Card, University of California, Berkeley
20, 21 Citigroup (NYC)
22, 23 David Berri, Southern Utah University (Cedar City)
24, 25 Elizabeth Bruch, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
26, 27 Michael J. Rosenfeld, Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.)
28 Asurion (Nashville, Tenn.)
29–31 Pew Research Center
32 Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (Market Harborough, England)
33, 34 Penny Abernathy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
35 US Bureau of Labor Statistics
36, 37 Internal Revenue Service
38 San Francisco International Airport
39 YouGov
