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Last Month’s Index
[ August 2011 ]

Harper’s Index

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Minimum number of punches thrown during a December brawl in the Ukrainian parliament

: 12
August 2011 • Source: Ukrainian Embassy (Washington)/Harper's research

Estimated percentage of the U.S. college class of 2011 who are moving back home after graduation

: 85
August 2011 • Source: Twentysomething Inc. (Philadelphia)

Chance that a student in Berlin “could imagine doing sex work” to pay for school

: 1 in 3
August 2011 • Source: Berlin Studies Center (Berlin)

Average hourly rate he or she imagines charging

: $1,300
August 2011 • Source: Berlin Studies Center (Berlin)

Members of Malaysia’s Obedient Wives Club, which encourages women to be “good sex workers” to their husbands

: 1,050
August 2011 • Source: Fauziah Ariffin, Obedient Wives Club (Rawang, Malaysia)

Percentage of Americans who believe Osama bin Laden was greeted by 72 virgins in heaven, according to a Fox News survey

: 3
August 2011 • Source: Anderson Robbins Research (Boston)

Percentage who believe he met a “more negative end”

: 80
August 2011 • Source: Anderson Robbins Research (Boston)

Estimated percentage of Afghanistan’s gross national product that comes from U.S. aid and other foreign sources

: 97
August 2011 • Source: U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations/World Bank (Washington)

Percentage of Egyptians who say that improving economic conditions is “very important”

: 82
August 2011 • Source: Pew Global Attitudes Project (Washington)

Who say that honest elections are

: 55
August 2011 • Source: Pew Global Attitudes Project (Washington)

Percentage of applicants accepted for employment on McDonald’s National Hiring Day in April

: 6.2
August 2011 • Source: McDonald's (Oak Brook, Ill.)

Chairs thrown

: 2
August 2011 • Source: Ukrainian Embassy (Washington)/Harper's research

Amount the Chinese government is paying to create the Robert Mugabe School of Intelligence in Zimbabwe

: $98,000,000
August 2011 • Source: Zimbabwean (Harare)

Minimum number of goose- and gull-chasing falcons laid off by John F. Kennedy Airport last year

: 15
August 2011 • Source: Falcon Environmental Services (Plattsburgh, N.Y.)

Percentage decrease in tweets by U.S. elected officials in the week following “Weinergate”

: 28
August 2011 • Source: TweetCongress (Dallas)

Rank of “Don’t Know,” “None,” and “Bill O’Reilly,” respectively, among America’s most trusted political journalists

: 1, 2, 3
August 2011 • Source: David Paleologos, Suffolk University (Boston)

Value of state tax breaks approved in May for a Bible-themed amusement park in Kentucky

: $43,000,000
August 2011 • Source: Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet (Frankfort, Ky.)

Average percentage by which the French overestimate the Jewish population of France

: 655
August 2011 • Source: Stephen Cohen, Berman Jewish Policy Archive, New York University (N.Y.C.)/Harris Poll (Paris)

Percentage of French people who call themselves “somewhat or a little bit” racist

: 13
August 2011 • Source: Stephen Cohen, Berman Jewish Policy Archive, New York University (N.Y.C.)/Harris Poll (Paris)

Centimeters by which an electron falls short of being perfectly round

: 0.000000000000000000000000001
August 2011 • Source: Edward A. Hinds, Centre for Cold Matter, Imperial College London

Portion of employers who say they conduct criminal-background checks on potential employees

: 3/4
August 2011 • Source: Society for Human Resource Management (Alexandria, Va.)

Estimated percentage change in chief executive pay at America’s publicly traded corporations in 2010

: +11
August 2011 • Source: Hay Group (Philadelphia)

Factor by which the likelihood that a father will spank his child increases if the father is depressed

: 4
August 2011 • Source: Matthew M. Davis, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)

By which women find proud men more attractive than happy men, according to a June study

: 3
August 2011 • Source: Jessica L. Tracy, University of British Columbia (Vancouver)

By which men find happy women more attractive than proud women

: 5
August 2011 • Source: Jessica L. Tracy, University of British Columbia (Vancouver)

Percentage by which a couple is likelier to divorce if one partner has a commute greater than 45 minutes

: 40
August 2011 • Source: Erika Sandow, Ume? University (Ume?, Sweden)

Percentage change in the number of unmarried cohabitating couples in the United States between 2000 and 2010

: +97
August 2011 • Source: U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.)

Percentage of men and women, respectively, who have been photographed nude, according to a June Playboy poll

: 27, 23
August 2011 • Source: Playboy Enterprises (Chicago)

Change since 1960 in calories expended during the average workday of an American man and woman, respectively

: ???140, ???120
August 2011 • Source: Timothy Church, Pennington Biomedical Research Center (Baton Rouge, La.)

Percent that working mothers “give” to their employers, according to Donald Trump

: 84
August 2011 • Source: Mika Brzezinski (N.Y.C.)

Chance that an American believes the country is still in a recession or depression

: 1 in 2
August 2011 • Source: Gallup (Princeton, N.J.)

Chance that an American adult has a criminal record

: 1 in 4
August 2011 • Source: National Employment Law Project (Oakland, Calif.)

Chance that a U.S. man who has been incarcerated will make it out of the bottom economic quintile within 20 years

: 1 in 50
August 2011 • Source: Pew Charitable Trusts (Washington)

That a man who was never incarcerated will

: 1 in 7
August 2011 • Source: Pew Charitable Trusts (Washington)

Number of Americans serving life without parole for crimes they committed when they were 14 or younger

: 73
August 2011 • Source: Equal Justice Initiative (Montgomery, Ala.)

Percentage change in the number of U.S. whites under the age of 18 in the past decade

: ???9.8
August 2011 • Source: U.S. Census Bureau (N.Y.C.)/Harper's research

Blacks

: ???2.3
August 2011 • Source: U.S. Census Bureau (N.Y.C.)/Harper's research

Hispanics

: +38.8
August 2011 • Source: U.S. Census Bureau (N.Y.C.)/Harper's research

Percentage of applicants offered undergraduate admission to Harvard this year

: 6.2
August 2011 • Source: Harvard College Admissions Office (Cambridge, Ma.)
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