Index Archive

As measured by the “unimproved” metric

: 10.7%

Incidents of suspected mortgage fraud in 2010

: 70,472

Percentage change in such incidents since 2000

: +1,900

Date on which U.S. student-loan debt is expected to reach $1,000,000,000,000

: 12/1/2011

Chance that an American who earned a bachelor’s degree in 2008 will be paying off student loans in 2028

: 1 in 3

Percentage of private-sector workers with pension plans in 1979 whose plans were defined-benefit

: 62

Today

: 7

Minimum number of times the calculation of the Consumer Price Index has been “improved” since 1980

: 20

Current rate of inflation, officially

: 3.2%

Portion who thought that the capture of Saddam Hussein would

: 3/5

Chance that a retiree reports spending more savings than planned to meet basic expenses last year

: 1 in 3

Percentage increase since last year in roadside calls to AAA from drivers who have run out of gas

: 14

Minimum percentage of U.S. electricity that is consumed by marijuana growers

: 1

Percentage of Americans who think the federal government has too much power

: 58

That lobbyists do

: 71

Amount spent on lobbying in 2000

: $1,600,000,000

In 2010

: $3,500,000,000

Number of public statues of individuals in the United States

: 5,193

Amount FEMA is demanding from natural-disaster claimants to whom it mistakenly gave funding

: $21,908,141

Portion of Americans who think the death of Osama bin Laden will make it easier to “win the global war on terror”

: 2/5

Percentage of Americans who feel safer since bin Laden was killed

: 16

Who feel less safe

: 14

Percentage likelihood established in a 2009 study by a UCLA geographer that bin Laden was in Abbottabad

: 88.9

Date of a classified memo, released by WikiLeaks, suggesting he was there

: 9/10/2008

Amount bin Laden paid to replace each cricket ball hit into his compound, according to a local boy

: $0.59

Length in years of the contract a Dutch soccer team offered a one-year-old boy after seeing him kick soccer balls on YouTube

: 10

Chance an item of girls’ clothing sold in the United States has “sexualizing” characteristics, according to a May study

: 1 in 3

Percentage by which a person born in the spring is more likely than one born in the fall to become anorexic

: 31

Value of currency eaten by termites at a bank in Uttar Pradesh, India, in April

: $221,900

Size of India’s annual deficit in female births, based on 2011 census data

: 600,000

Estimated number of people in the developing world employed collecting virtual resources for online gamers

: 100,000

Chance that a Russian believes the sun revolves around the earth

: 1 in 3

Chance that a U.S. high school biology teacher is an advocate of evolution

: 1 in 4

Percentage of Mississippians who are unhappy with the outcome of the Civil War

: 27

Date on which a Mississippi River–themed museum in Memphis was closed due to the flooding Mississippi

: 5/6/2011

Minimum percentage of mortgages in Las Vegas that are currently “underwater”

: 70

Number that depict women

: 394

Portion of all 800-numbers held by one Philadelphia company that redirects calls to phone-sex lines

: 1/4

Opening-weekend box-office draw in Hong Kong of Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy, a pornographic 3D movie

: $1,660,031

Of Iron Man 2

: $1,529,782

Harper’s Index

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