Percentage of U.S. album sales represented by classical music : 2.5
Of U.S. music streams : 0.7
Amount spent globally on virtual goods within video games last year : $93,000,000,000
Factor by which an American aged 8 to 12 is more likely to want to be a YouTuber or vlogger than to be an astronaut : 3
Percentage of U.S. heterosexual couples who met in 2017 who did so via
a dating app : 38
Of homosexual couples : 65
Estimated percentage decline from 1982 to 2017 in the number of gay bars in the United States : 40
Minimum factor by which the average American overestimates the U.S. L.G.B.T.Q. population : 5
Portion of Republicans who say small businesses should be able to refuse services to homosexuals for religious reasons : 1/2
Who said so in 2014 : 1/5
Percentage of Mexicans who believe migrants from Central America on their way to the United States should be deported : 55
Percentage by which remittances flowing into El Salvador from abroad exceeded Salvadoran social spending last year : 59
Portion of Salvadorian GDP accounted for by remittances : 1/5
Number of U.S. representatives and senators who are naturalized American citizens : 14
Number of these who are Democrats : 14
Rank of Donald Trump among G20 leaders with the biggest carbon
footprint last year : 2
Of Shinzo Abe : 1
Percentage of cases in which Trump’s two appointees to the Supreme Court agreed during the last term : 70
In which Barack Obama’s two appointees agreed : 88
Number of think tanks in the United States : 1,872
Factor by which this figure has increased since 1980 : 2
Minimum number of national and state bills written by industry groups, corporations, or think tanks from 2010 to 2018 : 10,000
Number that were signed into law : 2,100
Number of state legislatures that are controlled by a single party : 49
Number of U.S. states with higher per capita incarceration rates than every other country in the world : 31
Estimated number of people who died between 2014 and 2017 as a result of states refusing to expand Medicaid : 15,600
Percentage of American adults who think the Iraq War was not worth fighting : 62
Of veterans : 64
Number of countries whose militaries had drones in 2010 : 4
Whose militaries have them today : 33
Portion of violent protest movements seeking regime change from 1900 to 2014 that were successful : 1/4
Of nonviolent protest movements : 1/2
Portion of Americans under 35 who say they are often angry when
checking the news : 2/5
Of Americans over 65 : 1/5
Percentage of Americans aged 22 to 28 who say they have begun saving money : 67
Portion of those saving money who are putting away less than $50 a month : 1/5
Percentage of Americans who claim to lose sleep over financial worries : 56
Percentage of American office workers who have cried at work : 45
Estimated chance that smiling will improve a person’s mood : 1 in 14
October Index Sources
1, 2 Alpha Data (NYC)
3 SuperData (Oakland, Calif.)
4 Harris Insights & Analytics (Arlington, Va.)
5, 6 Michael J. Rosenfeld, Stanford University (Calif.)
7 Greggor Mattson, Oberlin College (Ohio)
8 Gallup (Atlanta)
9, 10 Public Religion Research Institute (Washington)
11 Reforma (Mexico City)
12 Salvadoran Ministry of Finance (San Salvador)
13 World Bank (Washington)
14, 15 Pew Research Center (Washington)
16, 17 fromAtoB (Berlin)
18, 19 Empirical SCOTUS (Los Angeles)
20, 21 Lauder Institute Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
22, 23 Arizona Republic
24 National Conference of State Legislatures (Washington)
25 Prison Policy Initiative (Easthampton, Mass.)
26 Sarah Miller, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
27, 28 Pew Research Center
29, 30 New America (Washington)
31, 32 Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy, University of Denver
33, 34 National Public Radio (Washington)
35, 36 Harris Insights & Analytics (Rochester, N.Y.)
37 Bankrate (NYC)
38 Accountemps (Menlo Park, Calif.)
39 Nicholas A. Coles, University of Tennessee (Knoxville)
