Index Archive

Percentage of Republican congressional candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin who won their primary races

: 60

Net decrease since then in the amount these companies spent on wages and benefits

: ???$171,000,000,000

Net domestic profits earned by U.S. corporations since the fourth quarter of 2008

: $609,000,000,000

Number of British households in which no adult has ever been employed

: 352,000

Average interest rate currently paid by credit-card holders in Mexico

: 32

Net worth of India’s ten richest people, expressed as a percentage of the country’s GDP

: 12

Number of women who served on the boards of major corporations last year in Japan and Kuwait, respectively

: 15, 30

Percentage of 18- to 26-year-old women who do

: 27

Percentage of 27- to 45-year-old women who have at least four sexual fantasies per week

: 35

Percentage who would while having sex

: 11

Percentage of Americans under age 25 who say they would read a text message while “on the john”

: 24

Chance that an American teenager in an August survey was considering “un-friending” his or her parents on Facebook

: 1 in 3

Average amount that U.S. parents spend to raise a child to age 18

: $286,000

Percentage of babies born in Hong Kong last year whose mothers were visitors from mainland China

: 36

Percentage of children born in the United States in 2008 with at least one parent in the country illegally

: 8

Date that the Tea Party Bookshop in Salem, Oregon, changed its name to Tigress Books

: 8/24/10

Chance that a viewer of Fox News’s prime-time broadcast is African-American

: 1 in 100

Number of Ebonics speakers the DEA requested this year to interpret wiretapped conversations of African-American suspects

: 9

Percentage of Americans who say they do not know a Muslim

: 62

Days after the U.S. military relinquished control of its last prison in Iraq that four prisoners escaped

: 5

Percentage of city-dwelling Iraqis who lived in slums in 2003, according to the United Nations

: 20

Percentage who do today

: 53

Number of active-duty U.S. soldiers who have sought “behavioral health counseling” so far this year

: 32,994

Number of musicians currently serving in U.S. military bands

: 7,007

Number of English-language schools operated by the Walt Disney Company in China

: 15

Number of years a copy of George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman had been overdue

: 45

Number of overdue books returned last year to the San Francisco Public Library during a two-week “fine amnesty”

: 29,228

Number of countries in which gay sex is currently illegal

: 76

Amount the German environment ministry paid hunters last year for their radioactive wild-boar meat

: $590,000

Number of people trampled to death in July during a stampede at the Love Parade in Duisburg, Germany

: 21

Chance that an American couple who met since 2007 first met online

: 1 in 4

Percentage of women who say they do

: 10

Percentage of British men who say they share “all [their] secrets” with their teddy bears

: 15

Percentage of British businessmen who travel with their teddy bears

: 25

Percentage of these people who opted to apply early in exchange for reduced benefits

: 73

Number of Americans who were awarded Social Security retirement benefits last year

: 2,740,000

Number of U.S. state and local government jobs that have been lost so far this year

: 135,000

Percentage of American corporations whose stock is currently rated as a “buy,” according to Bloomberg

: 29

Percentage increase since 1960 in the average weight of a farm-raised U.S. turkey

: 72

Average value of the 2009 salary and benefits paid to private-sector and federal workers, respectively

: $61,050, $115,182

Harper’s Index

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