Estimated number of Nigerians killed in clashes between herders and farmers over the first six months of 2018 : 1,300
In fighting with Boko Haram : 217
Factor by which more Americans are murdered each year by knives than by rifles : 4
Number of states since 2010 that have repealed or weakened knife laws : 21
Chance that an American believes that all members of the armed services
should be described as heroes : 1 in 2
That a German does : 1 in 7
Number of children since 2007 who have been denied UK citizenship
for failing the country’s “character test” : 517
Minimum age of children to whom the test is applied : 10
Amount of FEMA funding that has been transferred to ICE this year : $9,800,000
Number of “two-hundred-year floods” Houston has suffered since 2015 : 4
Percentage of Americans who have had to evacuate their homes
because of a natural disaster : 22
Distance, in feet, by which the Earth’s axis of spin has shifted since 1899 : 34
Estimated percentage of that shift that is due to climate change : 40
Factor by which national parks have warmed more rapidly than the United States as a whole since 1895 : 2.5
Portion of US households in 2015 that reported keeping temperatures at
“unhealthy or unsafe” levels to save money : 1/10
Average value of a payday loan in the United States : $375
Average amount a borrower ends up spending in fees on a payday loan : $520
Percentage of US public employee applicants for student loan forgiveness who have been approved since last year : 0.3
Portion of millennial men who identify as socialists or democratic socialists : 2/5
Of millennial women : 1/5
Percentage by which women are more likely than men to volunteer for work tasks that probably won’t lead to promotions : 48
Percentage of Americans who believe that men and women
have different leadership styles : 57
Percentage of those Americans who think women generally
have the better approach : 22
Who believe that men generally do : 15
Portion of US companies that claim to have been affected by prescription drug abuse among their employees : 7/10
Minimum number of US cities that have announced plans to establish
supervised drug consumption sites : 5
Estimated minimum number of cities that have such sites worldwide : 100
Number of people who have ever died of an overdose at one of these sites : 0
Percentage by which a US teenager was more likely to use marijuana than adults in their fifties or sixties in 2011 : 121
By which adults in their fifties or sixties are more likely to use it than
a teenager today : 3
Factor by which the average South Korean man spends more on skin care than the average man in any other country : 2.3
Portion of US men who do not regard changing their underwear daily
as “very important” behavior : 1/5
Percentage of Americans who say they have and enjoy a large social circle : 16
Percentage of cell phone calls in 2017 that came from scammers : 3.7
Estimated percentage of cell phone calls next year that will : 45
Percentage of Americans aged 13 to 17 who cite texting as
their favorite way to communicate with friends : 35
Who cite talking in person : 32
Percentage of interviews with professional baseball players that feature a variation of the phrase “one game at a time” : 7
That feature a variation of “a heck of a game” : 50
Percentage of adults last year who reported doing or learning something interesting the previous day : 46
December Index Sources
1, 2 International Crisis Group (Brussels)
3 Federal Bureau of Investigation
4 Knife Rights (Gilbert, Ariz)
5, 6 YouGov (NYC)
7, 8 Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens (London)
9 Federal Emergency Management Agency
10 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Silver Spring, Md.)
11 YouGov
12, 13 Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, Calif.)
14 Patrick Gonzalez, University of California, Berkeley
15 US Energy Information Administration
16, 17 Pew Charitable Trusts (Washington)
18 US Department of Education
19, 20 Maru/Blue (Toronto)
21 Lise Vesterlund, University of Pittsburgh
22–24 Pew Research Center (Washington)
25 National Safety Council (Itasca, Ill.)
26, 27 RTI International (San Francisco)
28 Leo Beletsky, Northeastern University (Boston)
29, 30 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Rockville, Md.)
31 Euromonitor International (London)
32 Ipsos (Washington)
33 YouGov
34, 35 First Orion (Little Rock, Ark.)
36, 37 Common Sense Media (San Francisco)
38, 39 Washington Post
40 Gallup (Washington)
