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Thursday 2nd of October 2025

1%ers To be in the top 1 percent of incomes nationally, families need to take in a minimum of $389,436. The average income of America's 1-percenters is $1,153,293 … Yet when incomes are measured state by state, the study shows wildly diverging fortunes for 1-percenters. … Teton County, Wyo., is the richest in America when it comes to 1 percent incomes, with 1-percenters earning $2.2 million. New York County, or Manhattan, ranks second, with a $1.44 million threshold … By contrast, you need only $97,000 to be a 1-percenter in Holmes County, Miss., or Lamar County, Ala. New York Times, September 25, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
9/11 The US now has 13m citizens with permits to carry concealed firearms, which is more than 12 times the number of police officers. As one lobbyist for the National Rifle Association tells [Evan] Osnos [author of a book being reviewed], the al-Qaeda attacks were a giant windfall for the US gun lobby. The fall of the Twin Towers followed a decade of sharply declining crime rates and lower gun sales. Suddenly there was a new paranoia of terrorists to exploit. Edward Luce, Financial Times, September 11, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
2008 financial crisis Compared with whites, minorities absorbed heavier losses in the housing collapse. From 2005 to 2009, “inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households and 53% among black households, compared  with just 16% among white households.” From 1984 to 2009, the wealth gap between whites and blacks nearly tripled, and in 2009, about a third of both black (35%) and Hispanic (31%) households had zero or negative worth, compared with 15% of white households. Ronald P. Formisano, Plutocracy in America, quoting from a Pew Research Center study  © 2017 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election Eligible and actual voters   Eligible Actual Totals voters voters Eligible: 231,556,622 100%   Didn't: 95,214,088 41%   Voted: 136,342,534 59% 100%  Clinton: 65,514,395 28% 48% Trump: 62,853,497 27% 46% Others: 7,974,642 3% 6%   As of Deceiber 7, 2016.  Eligible based on data from heavy.com; actual on data from uselectionatlas.org © 2016 Kwiple.com
2018 midterm elections In the 2018 election, density was the single strongest determinant of who voted Democratic and who voted Republican, with eight hundred people per square mile being the cutoff. Below that number, 66 percent voted Republican. Above it, 66 percent voted Democratic. Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Election officials Only one-third of Republicans (34%) and two-thirds of Democrats (67%) believe election officials are trustworthy. World Justice Project report on U.S. Rule of Law Trends and the 2024 Election © 2024 Kwiple.com
2018 midterm elections In the 2018 elections, for example, for every $1,000 contributed to political campaigns by unions and worker groups, businesses contributed about $16,000. Elizabeth Warren, Persist © 2021 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election Biden-voting counties in 2020 accounted for 70 percent of the national GDP. Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War  © 2022 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election Only one meaningful correlation emerged [from the Chicago Project on Security & Threats' study of January 6 insurgents]. Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline. For every one point drop in a county's percentage of non-Hispanic whites from 2015 to 2019, the likelihood of an insurgent hailing from that county increased by 25 percent. This was a strong link, and it held up in every state. Barton Gellman, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Abortion [I]t is notable that banning late-term abortion would have little impact on the roughly 630,000 abortions carried out in America each year. Only about 1% take place after 21 weeks. And they are often a response to the sorts of exceptional circumstances, including threats to the mother's life or abnormalities in the fetus, that existing state-level bans on late-term abortion, as well as public opinion, tend to allow. The main reason Mr Trump is harping on the issue is political. Economist, February 16, 22019 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Academic achievement Boys who fail at school grow into men who are likely to struggle in life. Poorly educated men face a brutal labor  market, as job opportunities in traditionally male, blue-collar occupations evaporate. Among men with only a high-school education, one in three is out of the labor force. For those who have a job, typical earnings are $881 a week, down from $1,017 in 1979. Richard Reeves, Atlantic Magazine, October 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Academic achievement In the U.S., almost one in five boys does not graduate high school on time, compared with one in 10 girls — the rate for boys is about the same as that for students from low-income families. Richard Reeves, Atlantic Magazine, October 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Affirmative action The US debate remains stubbornly monopolised by the ethnic breakdown of the tiny number of students who win the Ivy League lottery. The 19mn or so of those 31mn young Americans who do not progress beyond high school, and the roughly 12mn who go to less elite colleges, barely feature. Whatever tweaks the Ivy League ha to make to keep its diversity ratios after last week’s ruling are thus largely irrelevant to the 99.8 per cent that will never get there. Edward Luce, Financial Times, July 5, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Aging Arresting data point: in Japan, adult diapers now outsell baby diapers. Bill McKibben, New York Review of Books, October 6, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Aging In 2014 the US elected the oldest Congress in its history. The record did not last long: It was broken in 2016. And then again in 2018. And yet again in 2020, when — remarkably — the majority of the incumbents who lost their seats were replaced by someone even older. In the 2022 midterms, the House did become  slightly younger (the mean age of representa- tives dropped by a year, from fifty-nine to fifty-eight), but the mean age of senators continued to rise and is now over sixty-five. … The presidency is following the same trend. Fintan O'Toole, NY Rev. of Books, Jan. 18, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Aging In 2020 the share of people 65 or older reached  17 percent, according to the Census Bureau. By 2034, there will be more Americans past retirement age than there are children. … By 2053,  more than 40 percent of the federal budget will go toward programs for seniors, primarily Social Security and Medicare  — but those programs are not designed for or prepared to handle the new demographic reality. New York Times, October 6, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Amazon.com Third-party sellers are a key part of Amazon's business. A recent report by the Institute for Local  Self-Reliance, a think tank critical of Amazon, showed that the fees they pay are Amazon's fastest-growing major source of revenue:  The company pocketed $121 billion in fees from sellers in 2021, up from $60 billion in 2019, Given its market dominance, those fees are a revenue stream that Amazon could most likely turn up. The report also noted that the average seller now gives Amazon a 34 percent cut of every transaction, up from 19 percent in 2014. Moira Weigel, New York Times, April 21, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Artificial intelligence The compute [processing power measured in  floating point operations per second (FLOPS)] used to train AI models has increased by a factor of one hundred million in the past 10 years. We have gone from training on relatively small datasets to feeding AIs the entire internet. AI models have progressed from beginners — recognising everyday images — to being superhuman at a huge number of tasks. They are able to pass the bar exam and write  40 per cent of the code for a software engineer. They can generate realistic photographs of the pope in a down puffer coat and tell you how to engineer a biochemical weapon. Ian Hogarth, Financial Times, April 13, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Bad news According to estimates by the Pew Research Center, daily newspaper circulation in the US has fallen 17.9 per cent since 2015, as advertising revenues have dropped by almost $3.9bn. Newsroom staffing has been cut 11 per cent in that time, according to the US Bureau of Labor Specifics. citation Financial Times, July 22, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Bad news American newspapers cut 45 percent of their newsroom staffs between 2008 and 2017, with many of the deepest cutbacks coming in the years after that. citation Margaret Sullivan, Ghosting the News  [2020] © 2020 Kwiple.com
Bad news Constant repetition of the bullshit that “the majority of Americans oppose Obamacare” when only 37% oppose it outright and 58% either strongly support it or oppose it for failing to create a “Medicare for all” system Based on data from The Washington Spectator, January 1, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Bad news More than 800 journalists have been the subject of anti-Semitic attacks on Twitter, with 10 of them receiving 83 percent of the total attacks. The words appearing most frequently in the Twitter biographies of the attackers were “Trump,” “nationalist,” “conservative” and “white.” New York Times, October 19, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Bad news Poll says that 53% believe media offen make mistakes  headline, San Diego Union-Tribune, July 12, 1998 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Books From 2007 to 2017 American authors’ median income dropped by more than half to $6,080. That’s in the world’s biggest book market, includes earnings from sidelines such as speaking, and excludes the one in four published writers whose total book income in 2017 was $0. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, September 9, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Border walls Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, there were fewer than ten border walls in the world. Today, there are over 70, from the fortified U.S.-Mexican border to the fences separating Hungary and Serbia and those between Botswana and Zimbabwe. Tanisha M. Fazal and Paul Poast, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Bullshitters say We are not even into February and the cost of illegal immigration so far this year is $18,959,495,168. Cost Friday was $603,331,392. There are at least 25,772,342 illegal aliens, not the 11,000,000 that have been reported for years, in our Country. So ridiculous! DHS Donald Trump, 5:44 AM – 27 Jan 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
By the numbers 1 in 6 hospital beds in this country is now in a facility that abides by Catholic restrictions on care ACLU, “Health Care Denied” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers 1 in 3,408 chance of choking to death on food 1 in 3,640,000,000 chance of being killed by a refugee in a terror attack BBC, September 20, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers 46 states allow medical professionals to personally refuse to participate in an abortion 43 states allow healthcare institutions to refuse to perform abortions 42 states prohibit abortions after a certain gestational age 19 states ban the use of the dilation and extraction procedure (perjoratively labeled “partial birth” abortion), and 9 states even restrict private companies from providing abortion coverage in insurance policies (so much for free markets) Salvatore Babones, Sixteen for '16 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers 48 people were shot during a 15-hour filibuster on gun control headline, Vox.com, June 16, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers “53 to 47” Newt Gingrich, specifying the odds of his second marriage surviving, in a 1989 Washington Post  interview © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers 340 Days that President Obama has left in his second term, counting from the date of Antonin Scalia's death [February 13, 2016] 125 Longest period in days, that Congress has taken to vote on a Supreme Court nominee 25 Average number of days before a Supreme Court nominee has been confirmed, rejected or withdrawn their name 6 Number of justices confirmed in a presidential election year since 1900 The Nation, March 7, 2015 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers $20.6bn Increase in the net worth of Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, since the start of 2018 FT Wealth, March 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
By the numbers 2014 NEW YORK CITY AFFORDABLE HOUSING LOTTERIES 10 lotteries citywide 698 units, 486,000 applicants 0.1436% winners Upper West Side “poor door” building 55 units, 88,000 applicants 0.0625% winners 2014 ELITE COLLEGE ACCEPTANCE RATES Stanford - 5.1% Harvard - 5.9% Yale - 6.3% Princeton - 7.4% © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers A 2014 Pew Research Center report suggested that the United States' adult population of pagans and Wiccans was about 730,000–on par with the number of Unitarians. The Atlantic Monthly, March 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
By the numbers A 2014 study … found that students who are enrolled only part time in classes (often because they need to work to cover costs) drop out at a rate of 68 percent, compared to 19 percent for full-time students. American Scientist, November-December 2016, citing National Student Clearinghouse data © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers About 3.5m people were employed as cashiers in US stores last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics – more than in any other occupation aside from sales. The BLS expects that number to rise just 2 per cent in the next decade, far less than the 7 per cent increase it projects for the entire US economy. Financial Times, December 10/11, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers According to a 2017 report from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, 1.53 percent of native-born Americans are incarcerated, compared with 0.85 percent of undocumented immigrants and 0.47 percent of legal immigrants. New York Times, June 22, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
By the numbers … according to the largest survey on American sexual behavior conducted in decades … researchers at Indiana University found that only about a third of girls between 14 and 17 reported masturbating regularly and fewer than half have even tried once. When I asked about the subject, girls would tell me, “I have a boyfriend to do that,” though, in addition to placing their pleasure in someone else's hands, few had ever climaxed with a partner. Peggy Orenstein, New York Times, March 20, 2016 © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers According to a report from the Pew Research Center, children born to 90th-percentile earners are on track to make three times as much as those born to 10th-percentile paupers. The Guardian, May 26, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers According to the National Institute on Retirement Security, nearly 40m working households — 45 per cent of the total — had no retirement savings whatsoever in 2013, whether an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan or an individual retirement account (IRA). Financial Times, September 21, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Across the US, 58 million people earn less than $15 an hour; 41 million earn less than $12.  The Guardian, August 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Adults 35 to 49 were found to spend an average of 6 hours 58 minutes a week on social media networks, compared with 6 hours 19 minutes for the younger group [18 to 34]. More predictably, adults 50 and over spent significantly less time on the networks: an average of 4 hours 9 minutes a week. New York Times, January 30, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Although manufacturing now barely reaches double digits as a share of the U.S. economy, it accounts for almost three-quarters of private sector R&D spending in the United States. Edward Luce, Time to Start Thinking  © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Amount awarded to Michael Brown's family in their settlement against the city of Ferguson, Mo.: $1,500,000 To a Maryland family whose dog was killed by Anne Arundel County police: $1,260,000 Harper's Index, October 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Amount that Carrier promised to invest in an Indiana plant in a deal with Donald Trump to save domestic jobs: $16,000,000 Percentage of that money that will be used for automation: 100 Harper's Index, September 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Amount that North Korea owes New York City in parking tickets: $152,505 That Egypt owes: $1,989,554   Harper's Index, December 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Amount the US pharmaceutical industry spent in 2016 on ads for prescription drugs: $6,400,000,000  Harper's Index, January 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers An August analysis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, using data from multiple sources reached a similar conclusion [to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism], finding that since 1992, 219 people have been killed in attacks by “nationalist and right wing terrorists”; 23 were killed by “left wing terrorists,” including 13 since the start of 2016. Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers As many as 24 million Americans risk losing health coverage over the next decade under the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said on Monday. … An estimated 52 million people would be uninsured in 2026, compared with the 28 million who would lack insurance that year under the current law, according to the report. The Guardian, March 13, 2014 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers As of January 2016, the average college student would need to work nearly 28 hours at a minimum wage job to pay for just one $200 textbook. Books can account for 40 percent of academic costs at community colleges. American Scientist, November-December 2016, citing Covering the Cost, a report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers As of September, Trump had made an average of 8.3 UNTRUE or misleading statements a day – more than 5,000 total – since taking office Mother Jones, November/December 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
By the numbers At the beginning of 2014, according to the national balance sheets published by organizations such as the Federal Reserve … global household financial wealth amounted to about $95.5 trillion. Out of this total, I estimate that 8%, or $7.6 trillion, is held in accounts in tax havens. This is a large sum. Gabriel Zucman, The Hidden Wealth of Nations  [$7.6 trillion doesn't include nonfinancial assets such as art, gold, jewelry or yachts. Other estimates are as high as $21 trllion.] © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Average acceptance rate at New York City public high schools with test-based admission: 2.7 At Ivy League universities: 8.0 Harper's Index, June 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Average change in annual earnings for students who attend a vocational program at a public community college: +$1,544 For students who attend one at a for-profit college: –$920 Harper's Index, September 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The average household income for the poorest fifth of households fell by $571 over the decade that ended last year, adjusting for inflation. Over the same period, the average income for the wealthiest fifth of households rose by $13,479, adjusting for inflation. New York Times, September 12, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Average monthly U.S. searches for: who created god? 25,142 why does god allow suffering? 9,769 why does god hate me? 2,442 why does god want us to worship him? 258 why doesn't god answer my prayers? 119 Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, New York Times, September 20, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Average monthly U.S. searches for the question: Why did God make me … ugly? 422  gay? 145  black? 103  short? 33  stupid? 27  Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, New York Times, September 20, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Average number of hours by which an hour of running increases one's life span: 7 Harper's Index, July 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Average number of hours that a driver in Los Angeles spends sitting in traffic each year: 104 That a driver in New York City spends looking for a parking spot: 107 Harper's Index, October 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Average percentage by which U.S. military spouses earn less than their professional counterparts married to civilians: 27 Harper's Index, August 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Between 2016 and 2017 average CEO compensation GREW 18% Average worker compensation GREW 0.2% Mother Jones , November/December 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Between ages 25 and 45, the gender pay gap for college graduates, which starts close to zero, widens by 55 percentage points. For those without college degrees, it widens by 28 percentage points. … The average college-educated man … improves his earnings by 77 percent from age 25 to 45, while similar women improve their earnings by only 31 percent. Men without college degrees increase their earnings much faster than similar women in the first decade of their career, but by age 45, women catch up. New York Times, May 17, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Chance that an American adult is searchable in facial-recognition databases used by U.S. law-enforcement agencies: 1 in 2 Harper's Index, January 2017 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Consider, first, the remarkable profitability of the global corporate sector. On the basis of data from 28,000 companies, a recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute shows corporate earnings before taxes and interest more than tripled from $2tn in 1980 to $7.2tn in 2013, rising from 7.6 per cent of world gross domestic product to almost 10 percent. Importantly, corporate net earnings after taxes and interest rose even more sharply. John Plender, Financial Times, Jan. 5, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Daily wage a prisoner in Portland, Oregon, is paid to clear out homeless camps: $1 Harper's Index, November 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Date on which the World Taekwondo Federation changed its name to avoid confusion over the abbreviation WTF: 12/7/15 Harper's Index, March 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Deforestation – and the fires that frequently accompany it – also generates one-tenth of total global warming emissions, making forestry loss one of the biggest single contributers to global warming, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. New York Times, December 4, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Democratic House candidates netted 1.3 million more votes than Republicans in 2012, but secured 33 fewer seats. Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, June 29, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated chance that a white woman in Washington, D.C., has a tanning salon addiction: 1 in 5 Harper's Index, January 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated minimum combined net worth of Donald Trump's Cabinet members and advisers: $61,380,600,000 Number of countries whose GDP is lower than that figure: 114 Harper's Index, May 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated number of additional congressional seats Republicans won last year because of gerrymandering: 22 Harper's Index, September 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated number of emergency room visits last year attributed to adverse effects of sexual-enhancement supplements: 610 Harper's Index, January 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated number of firearms in the average U.S. gun-owning household in 1964: 4.5 Today: 8.2 Harper's Index, January 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated number of votes by which Donald Trump won the state of Wisconsin: 27,000 Of registered Wisconsin voters who lacked voter identification: 360,000 Harper's Index, January 2017 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated percentage of Americans for whose entire lives the United States has been at war: 21 For the majority of whose lives the United States has been at war: 46 Harper's Index, December 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated portion of Americans born in 1980 who will go on to earn more than their parents did: 1/2 Of those born in 1940 who did: 9/10 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated portion of part-time college faculty in the United States who receive public assistance: 1/4 Harper's Index, December 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated ratio of time Trump spent in intelligence briefings to golfing during his presidency's first month: 1:4 Harper's Index, May 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Even more serious is the ever-increasing number of people in extreme poverty — people living below half the poverty line, or below $9,500 for a family of three. An astonishing 20.6 million people lived in extreme poverty in 2011, up by nearly 8 million in just ten years, and 6 million had no income other than food stamps. … The near poor — those with incomes below twice the poverty line, or $46,000 for a family of four — brings the total of the poor and the near-poor to more than 106 million people Peter Edelman, So Rich, So Poor © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which more Americans died in school shootings than in combat last year: 3 Harper's Index, August 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which more Americans work in the solar industry than in fossil fuels: 2 Harper's Index, April 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The world has more than 70 times as many stock market indices as it has quoted stocks, according to a survey by the Index Industry Association. A census of its members found that they publish and regularly recalculate 5.28m indices, of which 3.14m cover stock markets. According to the World Bank, the number of public companies in existencee is only 43,192. Financial Times, January 23, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which the number of children born with drug dependencies has increased in the rural U.S. population since 2004: 6 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which a teacher in a “low-minority” school is more likely to be certified than one in a “high-minority” school: 4 Harper's Index, December 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which the gender pay gap in the White House has increased under Trump: 3.4 Harper's Index, October 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which the poverty rate has grown faster in U.S. suburbs than in cities since 1990: 2 Harper's Index, September 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which the temperature increase in Alaska since 1957 exceeds that in the rest of the United States: 2 Harper's Index, July 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which a U.S. Christian is more likely than a nonreligious person to think poverty is a personal failure: 2 Harper's Index, November 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which the U.S. budget for military bands exceeds the budget  for the National Endowment of the Arts: 3 Harper's Index, October 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which a U.S. gun death is more likely to be a suicide than a homicide: 1.8 Harper's Index, January 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers From 2000 to 2010, the United States lost some 5.6 million manufacturing jobs, by the government's calculation. Only 13 percent of those job losses can be explained by trade, according to an analysis by the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana. The rest were casualties of automation or the result of tweaks to factory operations that enabled more production with less labor. New York Times, September 29, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Fully 70 percent say the federal govern- ment should require limits to greenhouse gases from existing power plants … An identical 70 percent supports requiring states to limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions within their borders … Fifty-seven percent of Republicans, 76 percent among independents and 79 percent of Democrats support state- level limits on greenhouse gas emissions … 63 percent of respondents say yes [to paying $20 more per month for energy to limit emissions], including 51 percent of Republicans, 64 percent of independents and 71 percent of Democrats. Washington Post, June 2, 2014 on a Washington Post-ABC News poll © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Gallons of diesel fuel leaked from an Iowa pipeline one day after Donald Trump pledged to build two new pipelines: 46,830 Harper's Index, April 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Gallup poll results, 2013 and 2016, “How much money are you making today, versus five years ago?”   2013 2016 A lot more 27% 31% A little more 31% 37% Total “making more” 58% 68% About the same 14% 11% A little less 10% 7% A lot less 18% 13% Total “making less” 28% 20%  based on data reported in The Washington Spectator, January 1, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Globally, the McKinsey researchers calculated that 49 percent of time spent on work activities could be automated with “currently demonnstrated technology” either already in the marketplace or being developed in labs. That, the report says, translates into $15.8 trillion in wages and the equivalent of 1.1 billion workers worldwide. But only 5 percent of jobs can be entirely automated. New York Times, January 12, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Households with a retirement account have a median income of $86,235, while those without one have a median income of $35,509, according to the NIRS. Financial Times, September 21, 2016, National Institute of Retirement Security data © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers I only believe statistics that I have falsified myself. attributed to Winston Churchill, although generally believed to have originated with Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, to discredit Churchill © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers If current trends continue, a quarter of men between 25 and 54 will be out of work by mid-century. Lawrence Summers, Financial Times, September 24-25, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In a 2010 poll, a small majority of Americans revealed that they did not realize that humans and dinosaurs never coexisted. Another showed that almost half of Americans thought the sun revolved around the earth. Edward Luce, Time to Start Thinking  © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In America about half of college degrees in business awarded since 2000 have gone to women, but the share of senior executives who are female has remained stuck at one in five. The Economist, October 5, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In America only 15% of women with graduate degrees in science and engineering, which are in short supply, were employed in their specialism in 2011, compared with 31% of men. And nearly a fifth were out of the labour force, a share twice as high as among similarly qualified men. The Economist, October 5, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In October, the extent of [Arctic Ocean] sea ice was 28.5 percent below average – the lowest for the month since scientists began keeping records in 1979. The area of missing ice is the size of Alaska and Texas put together. New York Times, November 23, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In the five years after a job loss, an American family of four that is eligible for housing assistance receives average benefits equal to 25 percent of the unemployed person's previous wages, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. For a similar family in the Netherlands, benefits reach 70 percent. New York Times, September 29, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In the ten most dynamic states nearly 13 percent of the population was born abroad, compared with 6.7 per cent in the least dynamic quintile. West Virginia, which is the least dynamic, ranks last for immigration with 1.4 per cent of its population born abroad. Financial Times, May 24, 2017 [economic dynamism measures change in the number of companies, share of jobs in recently launched companies, labor force participation rate, etc.] © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In the year leading up to Trump's election victory, the word “transgender” appeared  in the New York Times 1,169 times. The word “opioid” appeared just 284 times.  Edward Luce, Financial Times, January 13-14, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In 1960, when a survey asked American adults whether it would “disturb” them if their child married a member of the other political party, no more than 5 percent of either party answered “yes.” But in 2010, 33 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans answered “yes.” In fact, partyism, as some call it, now beats race as the source of divisive prejudice.  Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land  © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In 1970, 92% of American 30-year-olds earned more than their parents did at a similar age … In 2014, that number fell to 51%. — When looking only at males nationally, the decline is even starker. As of 2014, only 41% of 30-year-old men earned more tnan their fathers at a similar age. — If income distribution remains as tilted toward the wealthy as it is now, it would take sustained growth of more than 6% a year, adjusted for inflation, to return to an era where nearly all children outearned their parents. Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In 2012, 66 million voters chose President Obama, 61 million voted for Governor Romney, and 82 million eligible people did not vote at all. Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In 2012, melt was recorded at the very top of the [Greenland] ice sheet. The pace of change has surprised even the modellers. In just the past four years, more than a trillion tons of ice have been lost. This is four hundred million Olympic swimming pools' worth of water, or enough to fill a single pool the size of of New York State to a depth of twenty-three feet. Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker, October 24, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In 2012 presidential election 93% of African Americans voted for Obama — 73% of Asian Americans voted for Obama — 71% of Hispanic Americans voted for Obama — 39% of whites voted for Obama Roper Center for Public Opinion Research © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In 2013, between the wee hours of Nov. 23 and the wee hours of Nov. 24, 10 American children and teenagers were killed by guns. … The number of fatalities that day exceeded the national daily average of 6.75. New York Times, October 28, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In 2015, the median compensation for the 200 highest-paid executives at public companies in the United States was $19.3 million, up from $9.6 million five years earlier. New York Times, December 8, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In the 2016 presidential race, the 100 biggest donors have spent more than the 2 million smallest donors combined. Brennan Center for Justice © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Income in the U.S. farm sector will decline for a fourth year this year, falling to $62.3 billion, half of the record $123 billion farmers earned in 2013, the USDA projects. The last time income fell four years in a row was in the mid-1970s. Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Industry reports and scientific journals provide evidence that each year 139 million chickens don't even make it to slaughter. Their legs collapse under them and, unable to move or reach food and water, they die of thirst or they starve. Or they simply cannot cope with the conditions they are living in, and their hearts give out. Or they die from the stress of being rounded up, thrown into cages, and transported to the slaugher- houses. In one way or another, they suffer to death. Peter Singer, New York Rewview of Books, May 12, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Large-scale informality [untaxed jobs] has malign effects. … if every country in the world reduced its informal economy by 10% of GDP, back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that they would garner $1 trillion or so extra in tax each year. For comparison, economists reckon that roughly $200 billion of tax is lost each year because of crafty use of tax havens. Economist, October 15, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Last year, natural gas surpassed coal for the first time in U.S. electricity generation, providing 34% of the nation's power, versus 30% for coal, according to the EIA. [U.S. Energy Information Administration] As recently as 2011, coal provided roughly 43% of generation. Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Marriage has become a mark of status, increasingly the preserve of the wealthy and educated. Today, 26% of poor, 39% of working-class, and 56% of middle- and upper-class adults aged 18 to 55 are married, according to research by Opportunity America and the American Enterprise Institute. This compares with 51%, 57% and 65% respectively in 1990. The Guardian, October 7, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Minimum number of animal species that are not officially extinct but have not been observed for at least ten years: 857 For at least one hundred years: 104  Harper's Index, August 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Minimum number of shooting incidents in the United States in the past year in which the shooter was a dog: 2 In which the shooter was a toddler: 50 Harper's Index, January 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Minimum number of states in which laws to criminalize political protest have been introduced this year: 9 Harper's Index, April 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Minimum number of times since September 2015 that Donald Trump has referrred to Christmas in speeches: 23 Number of those references that suggest the holiday was under attack: 19  Harper's Index, December 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Minimum number of U.S. politicians who have distributed AR-15 assault rifles at campaign events this year: 3 Harper's Index, September 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Minimum percentage of inmates in local U.S. jails who have been homeless: 15 Harper's Index, November 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers More than 25% of gun homcides in 2015 happened across census blocks that contain just 1.5% of the country's total population. While gun control advocates often say it is unacceptable that Americans overall are “25 times more likely to be murdered with a gun than people in other developed countries”, people who live in these neighborhood areas face an average gun homicide rate about 400 times higher than the rate across those high-income countries. The Guardian, November 15, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The more times companies go to arbitration, the better they fare … Of 3,945 employment cases decided by arbitrators from one of the nation's biggest arbitration firms, plaintiffs won about 31 percent of them when employers had only one case before the arbitrator … The win rate plummeted by more than half when companies had multiple cases before the same arbitrator. New York Times, July 14, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The most covetable trend in China is the most basic: education. China last year produced roughly nine times as many graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics as the US. Financial Times, September 19, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Nearly 80% of digital and print media stories about companies in crisis cited the CEO as a source of blame when the company's leader was a woman … That compared with 31% of stories assigning blame to male CEOs in stories about companies in similar situations. — Of the stories about female CEOs, 16% discussed the subject's personal life and 78% of those mentioned her family and children. By contrast, 8% of stories about male leaders touched on personal life, and none of them mentioned family and children. Wall Street Journal, November 2, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Net change, in acres, in the world's forested land since 1990: −319,000,000 In China's: +126,500,000 Harper's Index, February 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of countries in which direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads are legal: 2 Harper's Index, January 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of countries worldwide with maternal death rates lower than that of the United States: 76 Harper's Index, August 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of hours after the first U.S. election polls closed that the Canadian Immigration Services website crashed: 5 Harper's Index, January 2017 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of people fatally shot by British police in the past 3 years: 2 Average number of people fatally shot by U.S. police each day so far this year: 2.6 Harper's Index, July 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The number of people whose convictions or sentences have been overturned since the end of the moratorium on executions? 3059. Since 1977, more than twice as many people on death row have been exonerated as have been executed. In fact, more than one third of all people sentenced to death by American governments since 1973 have been exonerated—so far. Salvatore Babones, Sixteen for '16 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of private debt collections firms that the IRS plans to use to obtain overdue payments: 4 Date on which a U.S. government agency sued one of those firms for deceptive collection practices: 1/18/2017 Harper's Index, August 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of questions readers of a Norwegian news site must answer correctly about an article before commenting: 3 Harper's Index, November 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of San Francisco homes for sale in September that were affordable on the average local teacher's salary: 1 Harper's Index, December 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of species that scientists have named after Barack Obama: 7 After the four previous U.S. presidents combined: 1 Harper's Index, December 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of states that offer pro-life license plates: 29 That offer pro-choice license plates: 3  Harper's Index, October 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of statues in New York City's Central Park that depict women: 19 Percentage of those statues that depict fictional women: 100 Harper's Index, January 2017 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of the ten Amazon best-selling books in the United States last year that were coloring books for adults: 3 Harper's Index, June 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of the ten leading causes of death in the United States whose fatality rate increased in 2015: 8 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of the 100 highest-paid city employees in Boston last year who were members of the police department: 98 Harper's Index, May 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of times Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment during divorce proceedings with Ivana Trump: 97 Mother Jones, September 30, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of U.S. counties that have refused to issue licences for same-sex marriages since the Supreme Court legalized them: 8 Number of those counties that are in Alabama: 8 Harper's Index, October 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of U.S. states in which it is legal to sentence a minor to life in prison without parole: 31 Harper's Index, December 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of U.S. states in which legislation has been proposed this year  to protect drivers who strike protesters: 6 Harper's Index, November 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of U.S. states in which the poverty rate increased last year: 0 Harper's Index, December 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of U.S. states in which women would be at risk of losing their abortion rights were Roe v. Wade  overturned: 33 Harper's Index, April 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of U.S. states in which wrongfully convicted state prisoners aren't entitled to monetary compensation: 18 Number of U.S. states in which parents can be billed for the cost of their child's incarceration: 47 Harper's Index, June 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of weeks in solitary confinement to which Chelsea Manning was sentenced after attempting suicide in July: 2 Harper's Index, December 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of years by which an average U.S. book reader outlives a nonreader: 2 Harper's Index, November 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers [T]he odds of being killed by an immigrant terrorist of any kind, let alone a Muslim immigrant, are one in 3.6 million. Vox.com, October 27, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Odds on an online bet that Donald Trump will win the Nobel Peace Prize this year: 20:1 That he will announce the existence of aliens: 20:1 Harper's Index, June 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Of the 455 men executed for rape between 1930 and 1972, 405 were African American. The Guardian, October 8, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Oh … I'd … say … 9 point 142 or thereabouts, which we all know is nearly a full point lower than how you rate yours.  How Katanji Brown Jackson should have responded to Lindsey Graham, who asked her  during her confirmation hearing for appointment to the Supreme Court, “How would you rate your religious faith on a scale of 1 to 10?” © 2022 Kwiple.com
By the numbers On all three issues overwhelming majorities of likely Republican voters supported his [Trump's] positions: almost three quarters (73 percent) favored banning Muslims from entering the US, 90 percent favored identifying and and deporting illegal immigrants as quickly as possible, and 85 percent favored building a wall on the Mexican border. Ronald B. Rapoport, Alan I. Abramowitz, and Walter J. Stone, New York Review of Books,  June 23, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers On any given day nearly seven million adult Americans are under supervision of the nation's criminal justice system: in prison, on probation, or on parole. Salvatore Babones, Sixteen for '16 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers On average, between 1987 and 1991, 16 out of every 100 [police] officers were assaulted and 18 in every 100,000 died on active duty. Over the past five years those figures have fallen to ten assaults per 100 officers and nine deaths per 100,000. The Economist, September 2, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers On average, people in red states die five years earlier than people in blue states. Indeed, the gap in life expectancy between Louisiana (75.7) and Connecticut (80.8) is the same as that between the United States and Nicaragua.  Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land  © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers One dead in Putney equals 10 dead in Paris equals 100 dead in Turkey equals 1,000 dead in India equals 10,000 dead in China Saying among British journalists about what it takes to be front-page news © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers One dead in Putney equals 10 dead in Paris equals 100 dead in Turkey equals 1,000 dead in India equals 10,000 dead in China Saying among British journalists © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers One in four at Ivy League universities are legacy students. Edward Luce, Financial Times, April 27, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Outdoor air pollution contributes to the deaths of an estimated 1.6 million people in China every year, or about 4,400 people a day … New York Times, August 14, 2015, based on a report by Berkeley Earth, a California-based research organization © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Over 20% of all the world's prisoners are locked up in American prisons. In short, the land of the free is the home of the jailed. Salvatore Babones, Sixteen for '16 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Palo Alto's minimum wage is $12 an hour, but someone would have to earn $42.69 an hour to rent a two-bedroom apartment while having enough left over for other necessities. The Guardian, June 29, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers People tapped, swiped and clicked a whopping 2,617 times each day, on average.  For the heaviest users – the top 10% – average interactions doubled to 5,427 touches a day. Per year, that's nearly 1 million touches on average – and 2 million for the less restrained among us. dscout, June 16, 2016 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage by which a marijuana user is likelier than others to eat fast food five or more times in a given week: 75 Harper's Index, January 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Perentage by which the average response time of privately run ambulances exceeds that of publicly run ambulances: 55 Harper's Index, October 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Perentage by which using traffic circles rather than stop signs at intersections decreases injurious car accidents: 75 Percentage of U.S. intersections that are traffic circles: 0.09 Harper's Index, June 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Perentage by which a young Republican is more likely to know a millionaire than a Muslim: 27 Harper's Index, August 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Perentage change in downloads of Signal, an encrypted text and calling app, since the presidential election: +400 Harper's Index, February 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers  Perentage change in the length of time someone can withstand pain if they use profanity: +34 Harper's Index, November 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage change in median CEO compensation for S&P 500 companies last year: +6.6 In median shareholder returns: −5.8  Harper's Index, August 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage change since 1961 in the portion of U.S. residents who are Christian: −24 In the portion of congresspeople who are: −4 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage change since 2006 in the number of U.S. cities that have banned living in vehicles: +143 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage change since 2010 in the number of firearms silencers registered in the United States: +217 Harper's Index, April 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage increase in the last year in the number of U.S. taxpayers who fear an IRS audit: 64 Number of successive years that the IRS has audited fewer people than it did the year before: 7  Harper's Index, June 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage increase since 2015 in the amount West Virginia spends on substance abuse prevention and treatment: 3 On hiring contractors to transport corpses: 102  Harper's Index, December 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of Americans who spend more than 90 percent of their lives indoors or in vehicles: 92 Harper's Index, November 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of Americans worth $25,000,000 or more who make at least $10,000 in charitable contributions each year: 65 Who spend at least that much on home improvement: 69 Harper's Index, February 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of black Americans earning less than $25,000 a year who say they have been called a racial slur: 40 Of black Americans earning more than $75,000: 65 Harper's Index, January 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of DC residents making less than $50,000 a year who have marched in protests against Donald Trump: 16 Of residents making more than $100,000: 50 Harper's Index, October 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of immigrants seeking asylum who are successful in an Atlanta Court: 2 In a New York City court: 84 Harper's Index, January 2017 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of income and wealth taxes in Norwary, Sweden and Denmark that are evaded each year: 3 That are evaded among the nations' top 0.01 percent of earners: 30  Harper's Index, October 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of news stories about Donald Trump during his first sixty days that were positive: 5 Harper's Index, January 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of Republicians who believe millions of illegal votes were probably cast in last year's election: 52 Of Democrats who believe Russia tampered with the vote count: 59 Harper's Index, August 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of students at the top 30 U.S. law schools who are Asian-American: 10 Of elected prosecutors who are: 0.2 Harper's Index, October 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of U.S. apartments under construction that are unaffordable for those making less that $75,000 a year: 83 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of U.S. Latinos who would support a law criminalizing offensive speech about white people: 47 Of US whites: 26 Harper's Index, January 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of U.S. whites who believe white Americans are discriminated against: 55 Who say they've experienced discrimination themselves: 21 Harper's Index, January 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of registered U.S. voters who voted in the 2014 midterm elections: 63 Who say they “definitely” voted: 75 Harper's Index, June 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of Republican-primary voters who are “mostly embarassed” by their party's campaigns: 60 Of Democratic-primary voters: 13 Harper's Index, June 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of US jobs created since the recession that have gone to workers with postsecondary education: 99 Harper's Index, October 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of US retirees who are funding their retirement with cash savings: 56 Of French retirees: 17 Harper's Index, June 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of the world's civilian-owned firearms that are owned by Americans: 48 Harper's Index, January 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of worldwide vaccine-preventable mumps cases last year that occurred in the United States: 95 In Canada: 0.3 Harper's Index, July 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
a By the numbers A person who is flat-chested is very hard to be a 10. Donald Trump © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of Americans aged 18 to 34 who live with their parents or other family members: 2/5 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of Americans who believe that people can be supernaturally healed: 2/3 Who claim to have experienced such healing personally: 1/4 Harper's Index, December 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of Americans who have worked as independent contractors who would not do so again: 2/3 Harper's Index, December 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of Americans who think that most of the work currently done by humans will be automated in fifty years: 2/3 Who think their job will still exist in its current form: 4/5 Harper's Index, June 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of Americans who would choose to live in the United States if given the option of any country in the world: 4/5 Harper's Index, October 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of EPA Superfund sites whose cleanup costs are borne entirely by taxpayers: 3/10 Harper's Index, December 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of U.S. college freshmen who are required to write papers longer than 11 pages: 1/4 Who spend an average of less than five hours a week on assigned reading: 1/2 Harper's Index, May 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of U.S. senators who had military experience in 1975: 4/5 Today: 1/5  Harper's Index, May 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of U.S. workers who believe strongly in their company's values: 1/4 Harper's Index, December 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of voting-age Floridians who have been disenfranchised because of felony convictions: 1/10 Harper's Index, January 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Preferred sources for election news according to Pew Research Center ALL voters TRUMP's CLINTON's Fox News 19% Fox News 40% CNN 18% CNN 13% CNN 8% MSNBC 9% Facebook 8% Facebook 7% Facebook 8% Local TV 7% NBC 6% Local TV 8% NBC 6% Local TV 5% NPR 7% MSNBC 6% ABC 3% ABC 6% ABC 5% CBS 3% NY Times 5% NPR 4% Locl radio 3% CBS 5% CBS 4%     NBC 4% NY Times 3%     Locl papers 4% Locl papers 3%     Fox News 3%  Financial Times, January 19, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers President Trump has broken 2000. With just 10 days before he finishes his first year as president, Trump has made 2,001 false or misleading claims in 355 days, according to our database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president. That's an average of more than 5.6 claims a day. Washington Post, January 10, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Projected year in which the median net worth of black Americans will be $0: 2053 Harper's Index, December 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers A quarter of part-time college academics are said to be enrolled in public assistance programs The Guardian, September 28, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Rank of “smart” among words that occur to U.S. voters when they think of Donald Trump: 28 Of “idiot”: 1  Harper's Index, August 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Rank of the United States in 2014 among countries in which expats most want to live: 5 In 2017: 43  Harper's Index, December 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Ratio of the average annual number of deaths in the United States caused by drowning to those caused by gun violence: 1:8 Of federal research funding for drowning to funding for gun violence: 1:1 Harper's Index, April 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Research … shows that in the 2012 elections the residents of 75% minority zip codes waited more than twice as long to vote as the residents of 75% white zip codes. There was almost no difference in waiting time by average income level. The zip codes with the longest lines were minority zip codes, not poor zip codes. Salvatore Babones, Sixteen for '16 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The revised Trump plan would reduce the top individual income tax rate to 33 per cent and the corporate tax rate to 15 per cent. It would also eliminate the estate tax. The highest-income taxpayers – 0.1 per cent of the population, those with incomes over $3.7 million in 2016 dollars – would receive an average tax cut of more than 14 per cent of after-tax income. The poorest fifth's taxes would fall by an average of 0.8 per cent of taxed income. To those who hath, it shall be given. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, November 16, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The richest 1% of Americans can now expect to live up to 15 years longer than the poorest 1%. The Guardian, April 11, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The richest 1 percent of men lives 14.6 years longer on average than the poorest 1 percent of men, while among women in those wealth percentiles, the difference is 10.1 years on average. MIT News, April 11, 2016 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Seventeen percent of workers told Gallup this year that they worked 60 hours or more a week, nearly double the 9 percent who said so in 2005. New York Times, December 27, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The share of U.S. workers testing positive for illicit drug use reached its highest level in a decade … Overall, 4% of worker drug tests were positive in 2015. Among safety-sensitive workers, positive tests rose to 1.8% from 1.7%. In the general workforce, positive tests rose to 4.8% from 4.7%. … in 2014, the year of the most recent survey, about 10% of Americans over age 12 had used an illicit drug in the prior 30 days. Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Since 1980, the share of companies less than a year old has almost halved – from 15% of companies to just 8.1%, according to Census Bureau data. The total number of startups formed in 2015 (the last year surveyed) was 414,000 – a huge drop from the pre-recession figure of 558,000 in 2006. The Guardian, Ocotber 20, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Social media The cliché used to be that people had moved to social media for news. Well, they have moved to social media, but increasingly not for news.  After all, why let journalists you don’t trust tell you about politicians you don’t trust? Meta says news now accounts for under 3 per cent of what users see on its biggest platform, Facebook. Instagram, too, has deprioritised news. TikTok won’t even show political adverts. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 21, 2023 © 2024 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Social-media sites such as Facebook and Twitter Inc. shoulder “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of responsibility for preventing the distribution of fake news, according to 71% of the U.S. adults polled [by Pew Research]. Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Studies of voter impersonation show that this simply does not happen in the United States of America. For example, an exhaustive News21 investigation was able to identify just 10 cases of in-person voter fraud occurring voer the 11-year period 2000–10, or less than one per year. That's one case of in-person voter impersonation per year in a country of nearly 150 million registered voters. Salvatore Babones, Sixteen for '16 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers A study by the Pew Research Center released Thursday found that homeownership rates since the peak in 2004 are down across the board. But while the rate among white households has fallen 5%, it has fallen 16% for African-American households. The rate among households age 65 and up has fallen just 3%, compared with 18% for those younger than 35. Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers A study from Harvard University in January found that people with names usually perceived as being African-American such as “Tanisha” and “Tyrone” are 16 percent less likely to be accepted as guests on Airbnb than people with names like “Kristen” and “Brad.” Another experiment found that black hosts charge 12 percent less than non-black ones. New Scientist, July 30, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers There are 4.7 million searches every year for Jesus Christ. The pope gets 2.95 million. There are 49 million for Kim Kardashian. … On social media, it's the same story. Ms. Kardashian has 26.3 million likes on Facebook. Jesus has 5.6 million; the pope, 1.7 million. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, New York Times, September 20, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers There are 286,266 disenfranchised felons in Alabama, or 7.62% of the state's voting-age population. More than half of those disenfranchised felons are black, despite the fact that African Americans made up only 26.8% of the state's population as of July 2016, according to a US census estimate. … Of the more than 280,000 disenfranchised felons in Alabama, 143,924 are black, according to the Sentencing Project. That means that disenfranchised felons make up 15.11% of the state's voting-age African American population. The Guardian, October 4, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The top Google search including the word “God” is “God of War,” a video game with more than 700,000 searches per year. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, New York Times, September 20, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Total ballots cast in national general elections between 2000 and 2014: 834,086,926 Total credible allegations of in-person voter fraud during those years: 35 In-person voter fraud as a percentage of ballots cast during those years: 0.0000000419 % (a bit more than 4 per 100,000,000) raw data from Vox, August 2, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The Treasury Department has discovered … that 18 percent of workers are covered by noncompete agreements. They aren't all high-end engineers with trade secrets in hand. The list includes fast-food workers. New York Times, November 2, 2016, © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Truckers made an average of $38,618 a year in 1980. If wages had just kept pace with inflation, that would be over $114,722 today – but last year the average wage was $41,340.  The Guardian, October 10, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Trump's accusers by the numbers Kissing without consent: 3 Harassment: 1 Groping: 8 Assault: 1 Walking in while changing: 7 Rape: 2 New York, October 31-November 13, 2016 [names of accusers omitted above] © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Two decades ago, when Bill Clinton was elected president, the 400 highest-earning taxpayers in America paid nearly 27 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to I.R.S. data. By 2012, when President Obama was re-elected, that figure had fallen to less than 17 percent, which is just slightly more than the typical family making $100,000 annually, when payroll taxes are included for both groups. New York Times, December 30, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The typical online retailer generates $1,267,000 in sales per employee versus $279,000 at bricks-and-mortar stores. New York Times, January 13, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The UK Competition and Markets Authority said the company [Actavis], owned by Teva, the world largest generic drugmaker by volume, had hiked the price of the [hydrocortisone] tablets by more than 12,000 percent since 2008, from 70p to £88. Financial Times, December 19, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers U.S. farmers this year will collectively earn $9.2 billion less than they did in 2015, and 42% less than they did in 2013, according to the USDA. Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The United States scores depressingly low compared with other advanced countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. A baby girl born in the United States today is expected to live four fewer years than one born in Italy or South Korea. One in five American children lives in a poor home. In Norway, fewer than one in 20 do. For every 100,000 American children, 33 die before they turn 20. That's 12 more than in Britain. Eduardo Porter, New York Times, October 11. 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Unregistered eligible voters 37% of eligible people with incomes less than $30,000 — 44% of eligible Asian Americans — 46% of eligible young adults (18-to-24-year-olds) based on 2014 data from Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Up to two-thirds of adults live with alcoholism. One in four children are born with with fetal alcohol syndrome. Life expectancy is just 66.8 years. Fueled by poverty and addiction – the unemployment rate  hovers  around  80% – the suicide rate is over four times the national average. The Guardian, September 29, 2017, on Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Value of donations given to the American Civil Liberties Union in the week after the election: $7,200,000 In the week after the 2012 election: $27,806 Harper's Index, February 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Value of food stamps used at U.S. military commissaries last year: $66,978,704 Chances a child in school on a U.S. military base is eligible for free or reduced-cost meals: 2 in 5 Harper's Index, July 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Value of the prizes revoked from the Irish owners of a greyhound racing champion that tested positive for cocaine: $35,000 Harper's Index, December 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Voter registration 735,000 couldn't register because of language barriers — 1,900,000 couldn't register because they didn't know where or how to — 4,100,000 couldn't register because they missed the registration deadline based on 2014 data from Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Voter turnout   2008 2012 Eligible voters 64% 62% Registered voters 90% 87%  based on data from Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Voting, race and income   % of % of   population voters Whites in families 27% 35% making $75,000/more     Nonwhites in families 16% 11% making $50,000/less     based on 2014 data from Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Voting, registration and income   voting voting   rate of rate of   registered eligible   voters voters Income $100,000/more 91% 74% Income $30,000/less 81% 51% Gap in voting rate 10% 23%  based on 2012 data from Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Weight in ounces of a Stanford-engineered team of six micro-robots capable of pulling a 3,900-pound car: 3.5 Harper's Index, June 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Weight, in pounds, of the average American man in 1960: 168 Of the average American woman today: 166 Harper's Index, July 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers While China's income inequality is more severe than other large countries, wealth inequality is worse in the US. The wealthiest 1 per cent of US households owned 42 percent of all US wealth in 2012, according to researchy led by Emmanuel Saez, economist at University of California Berkeley. Financial Times, January 15, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers With more than 35,000 road deaths a year, the US has the highest rate of fatal auto accidents per capita of any high-income country, and almost all of these are caused by human error. Financial Times, September 21, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The word “gay” is 10% more likely to complete searches that begin “Is my husband …” than the word “cheating.” The Economist, September 9, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Car culture Analysis from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has shown that pedestrians who are hit by pickups or S.U.V.s are two to three times more likely to die than those who are hit by cars. In fact, the number of pedestrians killed by vehicles rose forty-six per cent between 2010 and 2019. John Seabrook, The New Yorker, January 24, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Car culture As American cars have bulked up,  the number of fatalities for the drivers and  passengers inside these rolling fortresses has fallen by 22 per cent. But the number of pedestrians killed has risen by 57 per cent. John Burn-Murdoch, Financial Times, February 23, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Car culture The pattern of car purchasing maps on to the US political divide.  Republicans are more likely than Democrats to buy a new vehicle of any kind, and vastly more likely to buy a big one. About 65 per cent of buyers of the largest pickup trucks, utility vehicles and SUVs last year were Republican, compared with just 15 per cent bought by Democrats, according to a survey by the research company Strategic Vision. John Burn-Murdoch, Financial Times, February 23, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Cars The average annual cost of ownership is up more than 13 percent from last year to more than $12,000, or just over $1,000 a month, according to the latest research from the automobile owners group AAA. … It estimates the cost of using a new car over five years and 75,000 miles, con- sidering costs for fuel and maintenance, insurance, license and registration fees, taxes, and depreciation. It doesn’t include the cost of parking, which can add hundreds or thousands of dollars to the cost of car ownership if you live in a big city. New York Times, September 22, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Children  In America full-time child care costs 85% of the median rent. The Economist, October 5, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Christianity According to a recent Pew Research poll,  60 percent of Americans believe the country was founded to be a Christian nation, and nearly half (including 81 percent of white evangelicals) think it should be one today. Linda Greenhouse, New York Review of Books, February 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Cities According to a 2018 United Nations report, the number of people living in the world's urban areas is forecast to grow by 2.5bn by 2050 — to two out of every three people on the planet. Financial Times, June 26, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Cities Modern “megacities” (defined as places with at least 10 million inhabitants) are the biggest human settlements in history, and growing every day. The world had ten megacities in 1990, 33 in 2018 and will have 43 by 2030, says the United Nations. Over a third of their population growth will be in India, China and Nigeria. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, June 2, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Congress Although women and minorities were still underrepresented [in Congress] at the end of the twentieth century, both groups gained considerable ground during the postwar period. In sharp contrast, working-class Americans — who have made up more than 50 percent of the labor force for at least the last hundred years — have never made up more than 2 percent of Congress. Nicholas Carnes, White-Collar Government [2013] © 2019 Kwiple.com
Congress As such, white Protestants are overrepresented in government, and are disproportionately represented in Congress. Currently 77 percent of Congress is made up of whites, compared with 60 percent of the general population, and 55 percent of Congress identify as some kind of Protestant, compared with 43 percent nationally. Mary Trump, The Reckoning  [2021] © 2021 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States According to the U.S. Senate, there have been 11,848 attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution. But only twenty-seven of them have been succcesful. America's Constitution has been amended only twelve times since Reconstruction, most recently in 1992 —  more than three decades ago. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority   [27/11,848 = 0.002279 percent success rate  — a snowball's chance in Hell of amending it] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Consumerism The report concludes that today's average global rate of consumption would need 1.5 planet Earths to sustain it. But four planets would be required to sustain US levels of consumption, or 2.5 Earths to match UK consumption levels. The Guardian, September 29, 2014, on a report by scientists at the WWF and the Zoological Society of London  © 2017 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus The country, it turned out, was experiencing wildly different pandemics. For every ten thousand Americans, there were thirty-eight coronavirus cases. But, for whites, the number was twenty-three; for Blacks, it was sixty-two; for Hispanics, it was seventy-three. Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, January 4 & 11, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus The global death toll from Covid-19 has passed 4m confirmed cases, as the virus continues to ravage countries with low vaccination coverage. The number of people killed by the virus has increased at a quickening pace over the course of the pandemic, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. One million Covid deaths were recorded in the past two and a half months alone, yet it took nine months to reach the 1m death mark. Financial Times, July 9, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus Just between June and November [2021], 163,000 Covid-19 deaths in the US alone could have been prevented by vaccination, estimates the Kaiser Family Foundation.  That’s nearly double all the American deaths in war in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq combined — and the unvaccinated continue to die, pointlessly. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, January 13, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus The U.S. now has more cases and deaths every 5 minutes than Taiwan has had all year. Wall Street Journal, January 1, 2021 U.S.: 1 death per 990 people Taiwan: 1 per 3,366,140 [3400 × better] New Zealand: 1 per 204,360 [2,064 × better] South Korea: 1 per 63,290 [64 × better] Liberia: 1 per 55,040 [56 × better] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Criminal justice There is also a growing body of evidence showing racial disparities in sentencing. In 2017, the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that the average federal sentence for black men was 19.1 perent longer than for white men for the same crime, even when criminal history and other factors were held constant. Adam Cohen, Supreme Inequality © 2021 Kwiple.com
Criminal justice While it is true that no former former US president has before been indicted on criminal charges, little else about the indictment of Donald Trump is as “unprecedented” as the headlines have so endlessly declared. If there’s one thing that American politics has established a precedent for, it's pretending that its own corruption is unprecedented. Wikipedia helpfully curates a list of 134 (by my count) federal US politicians who  have been convicted of criminal wrongdoing. Sarah Churchwell, Financial Times, April 3, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say Over 70% of Americans who died with COVID, died on Medicare, and some people want #MedicareForAll ? Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), 1:00 AM – Feb 9, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say There's a very good chance you're not going to die. Donald Trump, consoling the nation about coronavirus © 2020 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say When you're working for Hillary [Clinton], she wants to let people just pour in. You could have 650 million people pour in and we do nothing about it. Think of it. That's what could happen. You triple the size of our country in a week. Donald Trump © 2016 Kwiple.com
Death Falling life expectancy is the last thing you would expect on a worry list about US national security. Yet when it is dropping as fast as it is in the US — Americans live almost five years less than the wealthy country average — even the Pentagon has to sit up. At 76, Americans now live shorter lives than their peers in China and only a year  longer than the citizens of supposedly benighted Mexico. People in Japan, Italy and Spain, on the other hand, can expect to live to around 84. Your people’s longevity is the ultimate test of a system’s ability to deliver. Yet neither Democrats nor Republicans, presidents or legislators, seem too bothered. Edward Luce, Financial Times, September 8, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Death More than 1m people around the world die each year from infections linked to microbes resistant to antibiotics, according to a study that estimates the scale of a "silent pandemic" that is now more deadly than malaria or HIV. … Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been described by experts as one of the greatest  threats to public health in the 21st century. The figures underscore the dangers of bacteria developing resistance to existing antibiotics as a result of overuse — including during the Covid-19 pandemic — against a backdrop of scant new vaccines and drugs under development to prevent or treat infections. Financial Times, January 19, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Death One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. attributed to Joseph Stalin © 2019 Kwiple.com
Deaths of despair The U.S. suicide rate has risen by a third since 1999; there are now more suicides than deaths on the roads each year, and there are two and a half times as many suicides as murders. In 2017 alone, there were 158,000 deaths of despair [deaths from suicide, drug overdoses and alchoholic liver disease], the equivalent of three fully loaded Boeing 737 MAX jets falling from the sky every day for a year. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2020 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Debt A third of publicly traded companies in the US do not earn enough to make their interest payments. Any increase in borrowing costs will make life difficult for these companies, which need easy credit to survive. Ruchir Sharma, Financial ATimes, May 23, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy According to V-Dem, a Swedish research institute, almost three quarters of the world's population now live in autocracies against less than half a decade ago. That vertiginous shift justifies the term “democratic recession”. Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 29, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Drugs Biogen, which is licensing Spinraza [a drug for spinal muscular atrophy] from Ionis Pharmaceuticals, said this week that one dose will have a list price of $125,000. That means the drug will cost $625,000 to $750,000 to cover the five or six doses needed in the first year, and about $375,000 annually after that to cover the necessary three doses a year. Patients will presumably take Spinraza for the rest of their lives. New York Times, December 31, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Economic growth Clearly what the typical American understands by growth differs greatly from that of macroeconomists. GDP numbers insist we are doing well, at a time when half the country is suffering from personal recession. Edward Luce, The Retreat of Western Liberalism  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Economic growth Its [International Monetary Fund's] researchers find that, provided it is well-directed, public investment is particularly powerful in uncertain times. The most striking effect is on boosting private businesses' willingness to invest: raising public investment by 1 per cent of gross domestic product raises private investment by more than 10 per cent. Martin Sandbu, Financial Times, October 11, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Education According to one Harvard study, more students attended America's elite universities from the top 1 per cent of income backgrounds than from the bottom 60 per cent. Edward Luce, The Retreat of Western Liberalism  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Elections When evaluating the integrity of elections, experts rated America exceptionally poorly. Compared with all 153 countries in the [Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI)] survey, based on the average evaluations of both the 2012 and 2014 US elections, America scored 62 out of the 100-point PEI Index. Compared with the rest of the world, the United States ranks 52nd worldwide. Pippa Norris, Why American Elections Are Flawed (And How to Fix Them) © 2018 Kwiple.com
Electoral College The Electoral College is just one example of how an increasingly urban country has inherited the political structures of a rural past. Today, states containing states containing just 17 percent of the American population, a historic low, can theoretically elect a Senate majority. New York Times, November 21, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Elites If Rome’s oligarchs could have travelled to the future, they might have learned a trick or two from the US Ivy League. It is hard to think of a better system of elite perpetuation than that practiced by America's top universities. … Of the 31mn Americans aged between 18 and 24, just 68,000 are Ivy League schools  undergraduates — about a fifth of a per cent. Of these, a varying ratio are non-white beneficiaries of affirmative action. Many of those are from privileged black or His[anic backgrounds, as opposed to Chicago's South Side or the wastelands of Detroit. This is the basis on which the Ivy League lays claim to being a deliverer of social change. Edward Luce, Financial Times, July 5, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Employment Employment growth is slow and unsteady at most small firms, with the median small business adding fewer than one full-time position a year, despite the sector'r reputation as the engine of U.S. job growth. — Share of small firms adding or losing employees in a year Gained more than 2 20.4% Gained 1–2 11.4% Gained less than 1 31.7% Lost less than 1 21.0% Lost more than 1 15.5%  Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Energy According to congressional testimony by Armond Cohen of the Clean Air Task Force, meeting all of the eastern United States' energy needs might require 100,000 square miles of solar panels (an area greater than New England) or more than 800,000 square miles of onshore windmills (Alaska plus California), versus only a bit over 500 square miles of nuclear power plants (the city of Phoenix, Arizona). Given the amount of real estate that solar and wind farms usurp, efforts to place them are running into entirely predictable local resistance, which will only increase as the easiet and cheapest sites are picked off. Jonathan Rauch, The Atlantic, March 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Entrepreneurs Between 2012 and 2017 the number of tech start-ups that received initial funding fell 22 per cent. As one investor put it, “90 per cent of the start-ups I see are built for sale, not for scale”. Many of those businesses end up in the tech giants’ waste bin. Susan Holmberg, Financial Times, February 15, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Executive compensation Peabody [Energy Corporation] paid its executive team around $75 million from 2012 to 2014, according to its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the same period, the company lost nearly $2 billion. In 2016, Alpha Natural Resources secured a $12 million bonus package for its executives during bankruptcy proceedings, saying they should be compensated for navigating the complexities of the process. The previous year, the company lost $1.3 billion. New York Times, May 2, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Families American working-class families experience a level of instability unseen elsewhere in the world. Consider, for instance, mom's revolving door of father figures. No other country experiences anything like this. In France, the percentage of children exposed to three or more maternal partners is 0.5 percent—about one in two hundred. The second highest share is 2.6 percent, in Sweden, or about one in forty. In the United States, the figure is a shocking 8.2 percent — about one in twelve — and the figure is even higher in the working class. J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy © 2016 Kwiple.com
Farming According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, median on-farm income (as opposed to off-farm income from working other jobs) has averaged a negative $1,569 per year from 1996 to 2017. More than half of farm households now lose money from farming. They keep going only because family members work other jobs. The Nation, February 18, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Farming From the 1960s to the '80s, about a third of each dollar American shoppers spent on groceries went back to farmers; in 2016, according to the Farm Bureau, that has fallen to less than 13 cents per dollar. Given total US food spending of about $1.7 trillion each year, that falling share suggests that the changes in the food system could be costing US farmers at least $150 billion a year – certainly many times the $18 billion in federal farm subsidies that were paid to them in 2018. The Nation, February 18, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Farming In 1872, the average American farmer fed roughly four other people; now the average farmer feeds about 155 other people. It's not just people and plants that have become more productive. In 1950, the average cow yielded 5,300 pounds of milk. In 2016, the average cow yielded 23,000 pounds of milk. A Wisconsin Holstein recently yielded nearly 75,000 pounds of milk in a year, which amounts to roughly 24 gallons a day. Her name is Gigi. You can thank her later. Michael Lewis, The Fifth Risk © 2019 Kwiple.com
Farming In 1935, when there were about 127 million Americans, there were six million farms. By 2017 the population had gone up to 325 million, and the number of farms had gone down to two million. Four million had shut down in the space of a single lifetime; many millions of farmers lost their farms. In 1940 the population of Greene County, Iowa, in the center of the Corn Belt, was 16,599. It had fallen to about half that by 2020. Ian Frazier, New York Review of Books, February 9, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Filibusters The ease of use is what made it such a powerful tool for McConnell. Even Richard Russell could not have organized 137 filibusters in two years, which is the number McConnell deployed against Obama from 2009 through 2010. But under the rules of the modern Senate, doing so was as easy as making a sign-up sheet. All it took was a phone call or an email from a single Republican senator and the threshold on any bill or nomination would shoot up from a majority to a supermajority, effectively granting the minority veto power. And there is nothing the majority can do about it. Adam Jentleson, Kill Switch © 2021 Kwiple.com
Food In 1930 the average US family spent 24.3 per cent of its income on food. By 2007 that number had fallen to 9.8 per cent. This is because America’s food system, like most of the world's, became dramatically more concentrated, industrialised and globalised over that period. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, December 11/12, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Food Most of the 390,000 plant species on Earth rely almost entirely on them [insects] for their reproduction. This living dance has been performed for 130m years and out of its interlacing pattern emerge trees and crops essential to the human diet. Indeed, the “free” pollination service offered by bees and flies to our primary food stuffs has been valued as highly as $577bn a year by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Financial Times, September 24, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Food The report [by the EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets From Sustainable Food Systems] suggested that a sustainable diet would include no more than 98g of red meat, 203g of poultry and 196g of fish per week. For someone on a low income in Asia or Africa, this would mean a lot more meat than before, but for the average person in the US it would mean a drop of about 85 per cent. Clearly, this is not good news for the meat industry. Bee Wilson, Financial Times, February 16, 2022 [98g = 3.46oz, 203g = 7.16oz, 196g = 6.91oz] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Food Since the 1950s, broiler chickens have roughly quadrupled in size, and it now takes them six weeks, not 15, to grow to slaughter weight. These are inventions, not just chickens. Ezra Klein, New York Times, December 16, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Food Those confronting potentially life-threatening levels of so-called food insecurity in the developing world are expected to nearly double this year to 265 million, according to the United Nations World Food Program. New York Times, September 13, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Food waste In the United Kingdom, the amount of bread wasted totals 1 million loaves, or 24 million slices, every day, according to the Office of National Statistics. Food waste in the United States is put at 30 to 40 percent of the total food supply, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. New York Times, August 25, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Gender inequality Gender inequality costs the world economy $160tn a year (a combination of women being paid less and doing less paid work). Financial Times, July 3, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Global warming Global carbon emissions will have to decline 45% by 2030 to avoid apocalyptic global warming according to a 728-page UN report released on Oct. 8. It says a 2C temperature rise could trigger an irreversible domino effect as tropical rainforests die and methane-rich permafrost melts. Bloomberg Businessweek, October 16, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Global warming In the past thirty years, humans have added as much CO2 to the atmosphere as they did in the previous thirty thousand. … In the words of the Stern Review, a report commissioned by the British government in 2005, climate change “is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen.” Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, November 28, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Global warming  Less than one percent of the planet's surface has an average temperature higher than twenty-nine degrees Celsius, or eight-four degrees Fahrenheit; at the moment, that's mostly in the Sahara region. But computer modeling shows that within fifty years those kinds of temperatures could be common in most of the tropics, an area projected to be home to 3.5 billion people. Bill McKibben, New York Review of Books, October 6, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Global warming Scientists are struggling to understand why a burst of “scary” warming at the North Pole has pushed Arctic temperatures nearly 20C higher than normal for this time of year. … Temperatures this month have been as high as almost minus 5C when they are normally closer to minus 25C. Financial Times, November 23, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Global warming To put this in terms of power, Americans are consuming roughly eleven thousand watts every moment of every day. A string of incandescent Christmas lights uses about forty watts. It's as if each of us had two hundred and seventy-five of these strings draped around our homes, burning 24/7. … This means that an American household of four is responsible for the same emissions as sixteen Argentineans, six hundred Ugandans, or a Somali village of sixteen hundred. Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, November 28, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Global warming Two centuries ago, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was two hundred and seventy-five parts per million; it has now topped four hundred parts per million and is rising more than two parts per million each year. The extra heat that we trap near the planet every day is equivalent to the heat from four hundred thousand bombs the size of the one that was dropped on Hiroshima. Bill McKibben, New Yorker, November 26, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Global warming We know the maximum heat at which human beings can survive, the so-called wet bulb temperature of 35C [95F], which is calculated depending on the local mix of heat and humidity. Currently, fewer than one million people live in areas that average 38-45C [100.4-113F] in the shade during the hottest month, estimates the Inter-  national Organization for Migration (IOM). That number will reach 30 to 60 million by 2100, even if we limit average global temperature rises to 1.5C [2.7F]. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, June 23, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Global warming We know the maximum heat at which human beings can survive, the so-called wet bulb temperature of 35C [95F], which is calculated depending on the local mix of heat and humidity. Currently, fewer than one million people live in areas that average 38-45C [100.4-113F] in the shade during the hottest month, estimates the Inter-  national Organization for Migration (IOM). That number will reach 30 to 60 million by 2100, even if we limit average global temperature rises to 1.5C [2.7F]. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, June 23, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Global warming The world's average temperature has increased by around 1C since mass industrialization, with 16 of the 17 warmest years on record all occurring since 2000. The Earth hasn't experienced carbon dioxide levels as high as they are now for at least three million years, when the sea level was around 80ft higher than it is today. The Guardian, May 9, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Globalization Global remittances to low- and middle-income countries hit a record $554bn last year, double the figure for 2007, and more than the annual global total of foreign direct investment, says the World Bank. That figure is projected to plunge 20 per cent this year. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, September 24, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Globalization Yes, our most recent round of globalization produced more wealth than the world has ever known. Unfortunately, as economist Dani Rodrik has pointed out, for every $1 of efficient gain from trade, there is typically $50 worth of redistribution towards the rich. The economic and political consequences of that are the key reason that we are now in a period of deglobalisation. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, May 22, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Gun dealers Last year, Everytown [for Gun Safety] took a count and found there were nearly 78,000 licensed gun dealers in the country. Which, the organization noted, amounts to “more than all the McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Wendy’s locations combined.” This doesn’t include, of course, the very large number of people who buy and sell guns without bothering to get licenses. Gail Collins, New York Times, July 12, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Gun violence One study found that Americans ages 15 to 19 are 82 times as likely to be shot dead as similar-age teenagers in our peer countries. … Americans ages 18 to 20 account for 4 percent of the population but 17 percent of those known to have committed a murder. Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, May 25, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Gun violence [S]ince 1975, more Americans have  died from guns — including suicides, murders and accidents —  than in all the wars in United States history, going back to the American Revolution. … [W]e continue to lose 45,000 lives a year to guns. That's 123 lives lost a day. Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, May 25, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Gun violence Every day in this country, 316 people are shot. Every single day. 106 of them die. Every day. Our flags were still flying at half staff for the victims of the horrific murder of eight primarily Asian American people in  Georgia when ten more lives were taken in a mass murder in Colorado. You probably didn't hear it, but between those two incidents, less than one week apart, there were more than 850 additional shootings. 850. It took the lives of more than 250 people and left 500 injured. This is an epidemic, for God's sake. Joe Biden, April 8, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Guns In the past decade, the volume of private firearms has jumped more than a third to 120 guns per hundred Americans. The US now accounts for 46 per cent of all private gun ownership worldwide — more than ten times its share of the global population. … In the last generation, the share of American homes that own guns has actually fallen. … That means there are more guns owned by fewer people. Some homes have caches that could qualify as their own mini-militias. Edward Luce, Financial Times, July 6, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Guns Mexico has filed suit in a U.S. court on Aug. 4 against Colt, Glock, Smith & Wesson, and other gunmakers. The civil suit argues that the companies “wreak havoc in Mexican society, by persistently supplying a torrent of guns to the drug cartels.” In 2019, 17,000 Mexcans were murdered with American-made firearms. Bloomberg Businessweek, August 9, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Higher education According to four decades worth of data analysed by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, 60 per cent of college students earn more  than a high school graduate after 10 years — but that means 40 per cent do not. And at a third of those institutions, more than half of students earn less than high school graduates after a decade. Financial Times, April 4, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Higher education At 19 of the top 20 American universities, tuition exceeds $55,000 a year. Bloomberg Businessweek, September 19, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Higher education American colleges collectively now give more aid to each student with a family income over $100,000, on average, than they do to each student with a family income under $20,000. Paul Tough, New York Times Magazine, Sept. 15, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Higher education Among boomers [born 1946-1964], more men than women have degrees. Among millennials [born 1981-1996], 43% of women have degrees, seven points more than men. The Economist, September 12, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Higher education  Half a century ago, the landmark title IX law was passed to promote gender equality.  At  the time, there was a gap of 13 percentage  points in the proportion of bachelor's degrees given to men compared with women. Today, the gender gap is a little wider — 15 percentage points as of 2019 — but the other way around. For every three female college students, there are only about two men. The trend worsened during the pandemic. College enrollment as a whole declined in 2020 — but that decline was seven times greater for male than for female students. Richard Reeves, Atlantic Magazine, October 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Higher education Only 22 per cent of US adults said it’s worth getting a four-year degree if one has to take a loan to do it,  according to a Pew Research Center survey this year. Patti Waldmeir, Financial Times, September 2, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Higher education Since the 1990s, the death rate for white men with a bachelor's degree aged between 45 and 54 in the US has fallen by 40 per cent, but it has risen by 25 per cent for white men in the same age group without a college degree. You can't be free if you are dead. Timothy Garten Ash, Prospect magazine, January/February 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Higher education Using detailed data on companies and workers from the US and Denmark, we looked at the effects when a chief executive with an MBA or undergraduate business degree takes over from one without such qualifications. We found no evidence that CEOs with such degrees increase sales, productivity, investment or exports relative to the levels the company achieved before. The biggest shift when a chief executive with a business degree takes charge is a decline in  wages and the share of revenues going to labour, even in countries with different cultures. In the  US, wages under business-degree holding CEOs  were 6 per cent lower than they would otherwise  have been after five years, and labour's share  of revenues was down five percentage points.  FT Business Education Global MBA Ranking 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Housing 67 percent of markets require at least 30 percent of wages to buy a home headline, PR Newswire, September 26, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Housing During the boom years, IndyMac charged high interest rates (defined by the government as more than 3 percentage points above prime) to 24 percent of its white borrowers, but 36 percent of Hispanics and 43 percent of African Americans. Aaron Glantz, Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream © 2020 Kwiple.com
Housing Housing accounted for 23 percent of the average household's total expenditures in 1901, 27 percent in 1950, and nearly 33 percent in 2018, according to data from the United States Consumer Expenditure Survey. Those squarely in the middle of the income distribution spent slightly more, or 34.5 percent. New York Times, October 3, 2019 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Hunger Across Europe and North America, the number of people to have gone hungry increased for the first time since the UN started collecting data in 2014, according to recently published figures. Nearly 9 per cent of people were moderately or severly food insecure in 2020, compared with 7.7 per cent the previous year. … The figures are dwarfed by the levels in less wealthy economies; nearly a third of the world's population did not have access to ade- quate nutrition in 2020, according to the UN. And unlike poorer countries that lack govern- ment protection, most developed countries have state-backed welfare safety nets. Financial Times, August 10, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Hunger Of the 25 counties with the highest projected food-insecurity rates for 2020, 68 percent had majority Black, Latino, or  Native American populations — even though only 12 percent of U.S. counties have have a majority nonwhite population. National Geographic, August 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Immigration Germany has taken in roughly 800,000 Syrian refugees in the past two years. The US has taken in fewer than 20,000. On a per capita basis, therefore, Germany has absorbed 160 times more refugees than the country that was built on immigrants. Edward Luce © 2017 Kwiple.com
Immigration It’s a cliché that the US is a nation of immigrants — and a cliché that, for the past few years, has been just plain wrong. This nation of 330mn people managed to settle a meagre 11,000 refugees in the fiscal year that ended in September 2021, the lowest number in more than 40 years. Patti Waldmeir, Financial Times, April 2, 2022 [11,000 of 330,000,000 = 0.000033%] © 2017 Kwiple.com
Immigration Late last year, the US Census Bureau said international immigration into the US was at its lowest in decades. Net international migration had added 247,000 people to the population between 2020 and 2021, the bureau said, compared with a high of more than 1m between 2015 and 2016,  and lower than the net inflow of 477,000 people added between 2019 and 2020. … Immigration into the country was already in decline before the onset of the pandemic. The number of visas issued by the state department's overseas posts fell 25 per cent between 2016 and 2019. Between 2016 and 2020, the number of visas issued fell by more than 60 per cent. Financial Times, April 9, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Already there is enormous demand for impeachment. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll in May found that 68 percent of Republican voters think the House should impeach Biden.  A majority expect that it will  impeach him. Thwarting those expectations would be dangerous for any House Republican. Barton Gellman, The Atlantic, October 26, 2002 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Incels In the US in 2019, 28 per cent of young men hadn’t had sex with a woman in a year,  up from about 10 per cent a decade earlier, reports the General Social Survey run from the University of Chicago. In a national survey of Japanese aged 18-34 in 2016, 42 per cent of men reported being virgins. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, September 7, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Income growth Average weekly wages for America's production workers were actually lower in December 2020 ($860) than they had been, after adjusting for inflation, in December 1972 ($902 in today’s money). Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, May 1, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Income growth Between 1978 and 2011,  CEO compensation grew by 876 percent, while that of the typical private-sector worker rose by just 5.4 percent. Ronald P. Formisano, Pluutocracy in America © 2017 Kwiple.com
Income growth Between 1979 and 2007, income growth in the United States — all of it! — went to the richest 10 percent of earners; the  remaining 90 percent saw their income fall. Examining the distribition of gains, the Congressional Budget Office found that the  income of the top 1 percent rose by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, after federal taxes and government transfer payments such as Social Security. Over the same period, the incomes of the broad middle class — the 60 percent of the population in the middle of the income scale — grew by only 40 percent. And the bottom quintile fared the worst, rising by only 18 percent. Joshua Green, in Rebels © 2024 Kwiple.com
Income growth Despite the robust figures [for hiring by US companies] , year-on-year wage growth flatlined at 2.7 percent. The latest year-on-year reading for the consumer price index is 2.9 per cent, meaning that even as they report shortages of candidates, companies are increasing pay more slowly than the cost of living is rising. Financial Times, August 5-6, 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Income inequality A 2014 study by Alyssa Davis and Lawrence Mishel at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning advocacy group in Washington, found that chief executive pay compared with the earnings of average workers had surged from a multiple of 20 in 1965 to almost 300 in 2013. New York Times, December 8, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Income inequality All of the 10 highest-paid executives [in 2021] had compensation over $100 million, a first. Their average compensation was $330 million, the highest ever. But it's not just a few executives at the top enjoying the spoils. Underscoring how widespread the pay increases were last year, the median chief executive made $32.1 million in 2021, up 27 percent from $25.3 million in 2020 and far higher than in prepandemic years. New York Times, June 25, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Income inequality As in recent years, some of the highest- paid CEOs of public companies weren’t running businesses in the S&P 500 index. Private-equity giant KKR & Co. reported paying co-CEOs Joseph Bae and Scott Nuttall compensation valued at $559.6 million and $523.1 million, respectively. Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Income inequality The average CEO pay among the top 350 companies in 2017 was more than 300 times that of the average compensation of their workers, up from 20 times in 1965. Joseph Stiglitz, People, Power and Profits © 2019 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Between 1997 and 2007, for example, income after taxes and benefits grew by 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent of U.S. households, by 65 percent for those between the 80th and 99th percentiles, and by 275 percent for the top one percent. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2020 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Income inequality The CEOs of the fifty firms that laid off the most workers during the depths of the Great Recession took home nearly $12 million (on average) in 2009, 42 percent more than the CEO pay average at S&P 500 firms as a whole. Ronald P. Formisano, Plutocracy in America © 2017 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Connecticut presents one of the starkest examples of the growth of US income inequality. In their guarded homes, Greenwich's rich have been doing very nicely: from 2009 to 2013, the income of the state's top 1% grew 17.2%. The incomes of everyone else dropped by 1.6%. The Guardian, March 27, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Discovery Inc.’s David Zaslav, at nearly $247 million, had the highest 2021 pay disclosed so far among the CEOs of S&P 500 companies who served the full year. Mr. Zaslav’s pay was nearly 3,000 times the $82,964 that the company reported paying its median worker last year, up from a multiple of 1,511 in 2018. … The second-highest paid CEO so far in the S&P 500 was Amazon.com Inc.’s Andy Jassy, who was awarded compensation valued at  nearly $213 million, narly all in retricted stock. That was nearly 6,500 times the median Amazon worker, who made $32,855 in 2021. Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Income inequalty From 1993 to 2017, the average real family incomes of the bottom 99 percent of the U.S. population grew by only 15.5 percent, while the incomes of the top 1 percent of American families grew by 95.5 percent. “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century,” Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship © 2022 Kwiple.com
Income inequality From 2004 to 2016, the average annual wage for chief executives in the coal industry grew as much as five times faster than those of lower-paying jobs in the industry, like construction or truck and tractor operator jobs. Executive pay averaged $200,000, up 60 percent from $125,000, while paychecks for truck and tractor operators rose just 15 percent, to $43,770 from $38,060. … The data excludes bonuses, share options and other perks, which often inflate executive compensation – and the pay gap – many times more. New York Times, May 2, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Income inequality In the past three decades, CEO pay  “has exploded” to a ratio of 354 to 1, but their fellow citizens thought it to be about 30 to 1. Ronald P. Formisano, Plutocracy in America  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Income inequality In 2018, the median household income for a black family was $41,361, having grown 3.4 per cent over the previous decade, according to the latest US Census Bureau data. This compared with a median income $70,642 for non-Hispanic whites which had grown 8.8 per cent since the 2008 crisis. Financial Times, June 4, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Income inequality The largest gap between chief executive and workers in the survey was at Amazon, where this spring a union won a battle to organize a warehouse for the first time. Andrew Jassy, who took over from Jeff Bezos as Amazon’s chief executive last year, had pay that was 6,474 times that of the company's median employee. His compensation last year, $213 million, was the eighth highest, according to Equilar [a compensation consulting firm]. New York Times, June 25, 2022 [$213,000,000 divided by 6,474 means that the median income of an Amazon employee in 2021 was just short of $32,901] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Male computer programmers make 28 per cent more than their female counterparts in the US, after adjusting for differences between jobs and workers. That gap is four times larger than the national average, according to a recent study from Glassdoor. Financial Times, April 7, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Median pay rose to $14.2 million last year for the leaders of S&P 500 companies, up from a record $13.4 million for the same companies a year earlier, according to a  Wall Street Journal analysis of pay data for  more than half the index from MyLogIQ LLC. Most CEOs received a pay increase of 11% or more, and pay rose by at least 25% for nearly one-third of them. … CEOs at roughly half the companies were paid at least 186 times what their median worker made in 2021 … That is up from 166 times in the year before the pandemic and 156 times in 2018 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Since 1978. the poorest 50 percent of Americans have seen their real incomes shrink, by 1 percent. By contrast, America's most affluent 1 percent, over that same span, have seen their real incomes nearly triple. Sam Pizzigati, The Case For a Maximum Wage  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Income inequality A study of CEOs at the top 350 U.S. firms found that their total compensation in 2014 averaged $16.3 million. It had grown 997 percent  since 1978 — almost double the amount of stock market growth and far more than the painfully small growth in a typical worker's pay. The $16.3 million figure amounted to 303 times  the annual compensation of the typical worker, far above the 20-to-1 ratio of 1965 or even the 87-to-1 of the middle 1990s. Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, Democracy in America? © 2019 Kwiple.com
Infrastructure … some 900 cities and towns in China are now served by high-speed rail, which makes travel to even remote communities incredibly cheap, easy and comfortable. In the last 23 years America has built exactly one sort-of-high-speed rail line, the Acela, serving 15 stops between Washington, D.C., and Boston. Think about that: 900 to 15. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, April 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Infrastructure [T]he United States is notable for how much we spend and how little we get. It costs about $538 million to build a kilometer (about 0.6 mile) of rail here. Germany builds a kilometer of rail for $287 million. Canada gets it done for $254 million. Japan clocks in at $170 million. Spain is the cheapest country in the database, at $80 million. All those countries build more tunnels than we do, perhaps because they retain the confidence to regularly try. The better you are at building infra- structure, the more ambitious you can be when imagining infrastructure to build. Ezra Klein, New York Time, May 31, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Inheritance The average inheritance in 2019 was $212,854, up 45% from an inflation- adjusted $146,844 in 1998, according to an analysis of Fed data by ecnomists at a unit of Capital One Financial Corp. Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2021 —————   2019 median family wealth of   families headed by someone $464,000 with a graduate degree $310,000 with at least a bachelor's degree $243,000 with a bachelor's degree $102,000 with an associate's degree $79,000 who is a high school graduate with perhaps some college $18,000 with a GED or high school dropout [According to St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Internet The average person is online for six hours 58 minutes a day, or 40 per cent of their waking time, estimates a report by GWI,  Hootsuite and We Are Social.  You can do your job, conduct relationships and entertain yourself online, all for the cost of a phone.  And that's before virtual reality takes off. Beat that, so-called “real” life. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, May 19, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Judges All other presidents combined had endured a total of eighty-two filibusters against their [judicial] nominees. But from 2009 to 2013, President Obama alone faced eighty-six. Adam Jentleson, Kill Switch © 2021 Kwiple.com
Income inequalty From 1993 to 2017, the average real family incomes of the bottom 99 percent of the U.S. population grew by only 15.5 percent, while the incomes of the top 1 percent of American families grew by 95.5 percent. “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century,” Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship © 2022 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Measure poverty relative to median income instead of relative to a dollar amount © 2017 Kwiple.com
Lobbyists The number of workers in the Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office, the internal information services that provide unbiased reports to members, has dropped by 40% since 1979 even as legislation has grown more complex. Paid influencers, including those without the word “lobbyist” on their business cards, fill the gap. The Economist, September 2, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Local news Six percent of all U.S. counties have no paper; 46 percent have only one paper, usually a weekly, and 64 percent have no daily paper. “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century,” Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship © 2022 Kwiple.com
Longevity Over eight years, I conducted an ethnographic study examining the lives of children growing up in Kensington, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia. Babies born in the neighborhood are expected to live to 71, which is 17 years less than babies born no more than four miles away in the affluent, predominantly white neighborhood of Society Hill — and a life span on par with countries such as Egypt, Bhutan and Uzbekistan. Nikhail Goyal, New York Times, September 25, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Looks There were 18,489 buttocks augmentations performed by licensed doctors in the United States in 2016, up 26 percent from the year before, and 2,999 buttocks implants, an 18 percent increase, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. New York Times, January 3, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Losers More than 500,000 individual taxpayers took advantage of the same tax rule as Mr. Trump in 1995, according to the Internal Revenue Service. The average loss they claimed, however, was just $97,600. Mr. Trump's $916 million loss accounted for almost 2 percent of the national total. New York Times, October 4, 2016 — Trump's $915,729,293 loss divided by $97,600 average loss equals 9,382 times the average loss © 2016 Kwiple.com
Lotteries  According to the consumer financial company Bankrate, players making more than fifty thousand dollars per year spend, on average, one per cent of their annual income on lottery tickets; those making less than thirty thousand dollars spend thirteen per cent. That means someone making twenty-seven thousand dollars loses some thirty-five hundred dollars to the lottery every year. To put that number in context, nearly sixty per cent of Americans have less than a thousand dollars in savings. Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, October 17, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Lotteries Today, according to the National Conference of  State Legislatures, lotteries bring in, on average, about one per cent of state revenue per year. Like all money, it matters, but whatever difference it makes is offset by two problems. The first is that lotteries have made it harder than ever to pass much-needed tax increases, because, thanks to years of noisy campaigning followed by decades of heavy promotion, the public wrongly believes that schools and other vital services are lavishly supported by gambling funds.  The second is that the money raised by lotteries comes largely from the people who can least afford to part with it. Every state lottery is regressive, meaning that it takes a dispro- portionate toll on low-income citizens. Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, Oct. 17, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Manufacturing By one measure, the average manufacturing worker in the United States earned nine per cent less in 2015 than the average worker in 1973, while the economy over all grew by two hundred per cent. Sheelah Kolhatkar, New Yorker, October 23, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Manufacturing In all, there were more than 350,000 manufacturing establishments with no employee other than the owner in 2014, up almost 17% from 2004, according to the most recent Commerce Department data. By comparison, there were 292,543 establishments with other employees, down 12%. The shift creates a challenge for building back the number of jobs in the U.S. manufacturing sector. Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Middle class In 1985, an American man working the typical full-time job could support a family of four on 48 weeks of income, and be able to afford a range of nutritious foods, a three-bedroom house, a compre- hensive health insurance plan, a family car, even saving to put both kids through the state university. In 2022, paying for all that would require 62 weeks of his income, which is a problem, there being only 52 weeks in a year.  These figures come from the Cost-of-Thriving Index (Coti), which compares the rate at which wages are rising to the  rate of cost increases for middle-class staples. Oren Cass, Financial Times, February 13, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Military spending [T]he 2020 federal budget for  the Department of Defence is $738 billion. Homeland Security soaked up $47.7 billion;  the State Department got $41 billion. By comparison, the appropriation for the  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2020 was $7.7 billion. The federal budget for planning and enforcing our environmental regulations was $9.4 billion. In other words, for every dollar it spends on defense, the federal government spends a little over two cents on public health and protecting the earth combined. Elizabeth Warren, Persist © 2021 Kwiple.com
Millennials Even before coronavirus, she [Ana Hernández Kent, a policy analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis] calculates that the typical older millennial family's median wealth – what they own minus what they owe – was around a third lower than where they should be compared with previous generations at the same stage of life. Financial Times, July 9, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Millennials The St Louis Fed estimates as many as 16 per cent of US millennials do not have the immediate means to cover an emergency expense of $400. For black millennials in particular, that figure rises to 32 per cent. Financial Times, July 9, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Minimum wage A single parent with one child working a full-time minimum-wage job will earn below the federal poverty threshold of $16,070, according to the University of California's Center for Poverty Research. Washington Post, November 1, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Money in politics The disappearance of labor's countervailing power can readily be seen in the 2015-16 election cycle, when corporations and Wall Street contributed $34 to candidates from both parties for every $1 donated by unions and all public interest organizations combined. [34:1] Business outspent labor $3.4 billion to $213 million. [16:1] All of the nation's unions together spend about $48 million annually on lobbying in Washington. Corporate America spends $3 billion. [62:1] Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Money in politics In the 1980s, about 10 percent of all campaign spending came from one-tenth of 1 percent (0.01 percent) of the voting age population. By 2012, more than 40 percent of spending came from this tiny sliver of wealthy Americans. … [I]n 2012 the combined contributions of the 3.7 million small donors to the Obama and Romney campaigns amounted to less than the total contibutions of the 159 largest individual super PAC contributors. Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, Democracy in America? © 2019 Kwiple.com
Money in politics In the election cycle of 2016, the richest one-hundredth  of 1 percent of Americans — 24,949 extraordinarily wealthy people — accounted for a record-breaking 40 percent of all campaign contributions. By contrast, in 1980, the top 0.01 percent accounted for only 15 percent of all contributions. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Money in politics Over the past decade, just ten people — ten donors and their spouses — have injected more than $1.1 billion into super PACs and other organizations that support their favored candidates. Ten families have a voice in Washington that drowns out millions of families who also need government on their side. Elizabeth Warren, Persist © 2021 Kwiple.com
Money in politics Pfizer, whose donations to the GOP in 2016 totaled $16 million, would reap $39 billion [in savings from the tax cuts passed by Congress in 2017]. [2,437:1] GE contributed $20 million and will get back $16 billion in tax savings. [800:1] Chevron donated $13 million and received $9 billion. [692:1] Not even a sizzling economy can deliver anything close to the returns on political investments. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
Money in politics This effort to capture the Supreme Court — they're not kidding around. Spending $250 million in dark money [from 2014 to 2017] is a serious investment that demands a serious return. And guess what? Expert testimony before my Senate Court subcommitte has since raised that number to $400 million through 2018. Through all these allied and front groups — the keys on the dark money piano that the big money donors can play in chords and singly, as they wish — dark money donors can, from hiding, covertly channel tens if not hundreds of millios of dollars in anonymized money towards the scheme's court capture goal. Sheldon Whitehouse, August 5, 2021, on efforts by the Judicial Crisis Network to make the Supreme Court a tool for use by the right- wing anti-government mega donors it represents © 2021 Kwiple.com
Murder … calculations made in 2004 put the cost of a single murder to society at $9.7m. That is equivalent to $15.7m today, and it would put the total cost of homicide in America at nearly $400bn a year, or just under 2% of GDP, most of it concentrated in the poorest parts of the country. The Economist, September 17, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Partisanship Being a Democrat or a Republican has become not just a party affiliation but an identiy. A 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Foundation found that 49 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats say the other party makes them “afraid.” Among politically engaged Americans, the numbers are even higher— 70 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Republicans say they live in fear of the other party. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Partisanship In 1992, 38 percent of Americans lived in “landslide counties,” which went for a presidential candidate by a margin of 20 percentage points or more, the Times  has reported; in 2016, the number reached 60 percent. Sasha Issenberg, “Divided We Stand,” New York magazine, November 12-25, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Partisanship In 2016, for the first time in history, there was not a single split-ticket state —  or a state that voted for a presidenial candidate of one party, and a Senate candidate of the other. In every state, voters chose a presidential candidate and a Senate candidate of the same party. Adam Jentleson, Kill Switch © 2021 Kwiple.com
Polarization I find this statistic shocking, and perhaps you will, too: In 1952, only 50 percent of voters said they saw a big difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties. By 1984, it was 62 percent. In 2004, it was 76 percent. By 2020, it was 90 percent.  The yawning differences between the parties have made swing voters not just an endangered species, but a bizarre one. How muddled must your beliefs about politics be to shift regularly between Republican and Democratic Parties that agree on so little? Ezra Klein, New York Times, November 12, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Political inequality The fifty Republican Senators represent  a population that comprises approximately forty-one million fewer citizens than the Democrats represent. Mary Trump, The Reckoning  [2021] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Political inequality Many people find it odd that voters in small, sparsely populated states seem to have more “voting power” than people in large, densely populated states. As an example, about 553,000 eligible voters in North Dakota get three electoral votes, or one elector per 177,666 voters, roughly, while California's much larger electorate of about 23.6 million eligible voters gets fifty-five electoral votes, or about one for every 429,455 votes. Richard M. Valelly, American Politics [copyrighted 2013] [429,455 / 177,666 = 2.42] [2.42 is criminally beyond “1 man 1 vote”] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Political violence In our April survey, about 10 million Democrats agree that the “use of force is is justified to change” US laws and institutions that are “fundamentally unjust” and about 10 million Democrats also agree that “force is justified against the police.” Robert A. Pape, Boston Globe, August 16, 2022 [Survey conducted by Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST)] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Political violence  Our surveys have consistently found that between 15 million and 20 million American adults agree that the “use of force is justified” to retore Trump to the presidency and that well over 50 million agree that Joe Biden stole the election and is an illegitimate president. … These 18 million with pro-Trump insurrectionist sympathies have dangerous capabilities and training (8 million own guns, 2 million have prior US military service) and near-term organizational growth potential (1 million are a militia member or know one, 6 million support anti-government militias like the Oath Keepers and extremist groups like the Proud Boys). Robert A. Pape, Boston Globe, August 16, 2022 [Survey conducted by Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST)] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Post-2014 Senate shituation 13 states (Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Wyoming) 2014 population: 35,432,696 Senators: 26 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,362,796 people — 1 state (California) 2014 population: 38,332,521 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,166,261 people 19,166,261 / 1,362,796 = 14, therefore: average 13er's vote is worth 14 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 7% of an average 13er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2014 population = 582,658, therefore: 1 Senator per 291,329 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 66 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.5% of a Wyomian's © 2015 Kwiple.com
Post-2016 Senate shituation 14 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2016 population: 38,597,448 Senators: 28 Republicans 1 Senator per 2,756,961 people — 1 state (California) 2016 population: 38,802,500 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,401,250 people 19,401,250 / 2,756,961 = 7, therefore: average 14er's vote is worth 7 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 14% of an average 14er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2016 population = 584,153, therefore: 1 Senator per 292,077 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 66 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.5% of a Wyomian's © 2016 Kwiple.com
Productivity First, the losses suffered by labour relative to capital are even more extreme than previously thought. While productivity gains since the mid-1990s amounted to 25 per cent  in real terms, wages grew only 11 per cent. Meanwhile, capital income  increased by two-thirds.  If there is any doubt that the link between  productivity and wages has broken down, this should put it to rest. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, May 30, 2021, on lessons learned from a new report from McKinsey Global Institute © 2021 Kwiple.com
Public broadcasting Unlike its counterparts around the world, the United States has never developed a strong public media sector, and it remains unique among democracies in its underfunding of public broadcasting – the United States today spends only about the price of a latte per capita per year on public media institutions. By comparison, Canada spends over thiry dollars per person, and northern European countries spend over one hundred dollars per person. Victor Pickard © 2019 Kwiple.com
Public discourse Seventy percent of Democratic partisans and leaners said was never acceptable for elected officials to call their opponents stupid, while only 51 percent of Republicans same the same. Fifty-three percent of Democrats said it was never acceptable to call opponents “anti-American”; only 25 percent of Republicans same the same. And 42 percent of Democrats said is was never acceptable to call an opponent's policy positions “evil” — a minority this time, but, here again, a larger proportion than the 26 percent of Republicans who said the same. Osita Nwanevu, The New Republic, Oct. 2021, reporting on the findings of a 2019 poll by Pew Research Center © 2021 Kwiple.com
Public lands Across America, 15 million acres of state and federal land lies surrounded by private land, with no legal entry by road or trail.  Most can be found scattered across the West,  moated by ranches and corporate buildings. Such “landlocked land,” if it were one contiguous piece, would form the largest national park in the country, an area nearly the size of Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut. New York Times, November 26, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Reading According to a  2022 Department of Education assessment, 67 percent of American fourth graders are not proficient readers. “The problem is even worse when you look beyond the average and focus on specific groups of children,” [Emily] Hanford  [creator of the “Sold a Story” podcast] says. “The most alarming statistic: 82 percent of Black fourth graders are not proficient readers.” Some of these children will never get the help they need. ProPublica recently reported that one fifth of adults in the United States struggle with reading — a “silent literacy crisis.” Christine Smallwood, New York Review of Books, February 9, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Reading In the 2021 international Pisa survey, 49 per cent of students agreed that “I read only if I have to”, 13 percentage points higher than in 2000. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, October 19, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Refugees From 2011 to 2105, global forced displacement increased by more than 50 percent, from 42.5 to 65.3 million people. In 2015 alone, more than 12 million people were newly displaced due to conflict or persecution — meaning that an average of 34,000 individuals per day,  or twenty-four every minute, were leaving their homes to seek protection and security elsewhere. Jennifer Welsh, The Return of History  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Religion Crowds Rushing to See Pope Trample 6 To Death headline, Journal Star [Peoria, Ill.], July 9, 1980 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Republican Party In Wall Street and NBC News polling, the share of the party held by white voters with a college education dropped from 40% to 25% over the last decade or so —  still a significant faction but less influentisl. Wall Street Journal, January 20-21, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Cutting funding for statistical agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau is change we believe in  © 2016 Kwiple.com
Robots For every robot per thousand workers, up to six workers lost their jobs and wages fell by as much as three- fourths of a percent, according to a new paper by the economists, Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T. and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University. It appears to be the first study to quantify large, direct, negative effects of robots. … The researchers said they were surprised to see very little employ- ment increase in other occupations to offset the job losses in manufacturing. New York Times, March 28, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Rule of law The proportion of Americans who believe a high-ranking official would be held  accountable for breaking the law decreased from 60% to 35% in the last decade. … Around 13% of Americans (regardless of political affiliation) now say people do not need to obey the laws of a government they did not vote for. World Justice Project report on U.S. Rule of Law Trends and the 2024 Election © 2024 Kwiple.com
Rural America Exit polls showed that 62 percent of the rural vote went to Donald Trump, compared with 50 percent of the suburban vote and only 35 percent of the urban vote. Robert Wuthnow, The Left Behind © 2018 Kwiple.com
Rural America From 2010 to 2020, more than 130 of the 1,800 rural hospitals in America went out of business. At the start of 2020, almost half of the rest were at “high risk”  of closure, according to the nonprofit Center  for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. The situation grew even worse as the pandemic diminished the frequency of money-making elective surgeries and a growing demand for health-care workers caused hospital payrolls to soar. Many hospitals were kept open only by infusions of federal money. BloombergBusinesswork, January 28, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Rural America Of the 19,000 incorporated places in the United States, 18,000 of them have populations less than 25,000. 14,000 are located outside of an urbanized area. This is rural America.  Robert Wuthnow, The Left Behind © 2018 Kwiple.com
Rural America Since 2010 the amount of bad debt at rural hospitals has jumped 50%, according to the National Rural Health Association. It sets a vicious cycle in motion:  A depressed economy leads to unpaid bills; unpaid bills lead to hospital closures; the closures strip the local economy of higher-wage jobs; and the economy gets more depressed.  The National Institutes of Health estimates that when a rural hospital closes, per capita income in the surrounding county dips an average of 4%. BloombergBusinesswork, January 28, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
School spending Right now, we collectively spend about 1,000 times more per student on science,  technoloy, engineering and math education than we do on history and civics. Where civics education is taught, it is often hampered by a lack of consensus about what to teach and how. Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, 2021/03/01, signed by six former U.S. education secretaries: Lamar Alexander, Arne Duncan, John King, Rod Paige, Richard Riley, Margaret Spellings © 2021 Kwiple.com
Selfie Shaquille O'Neal and I have an average height of six feet. Robert B. Reich © 2020 Kwiple.com
Sexual harassment Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News star who was fired this week as a result of a sexual harassment scandal, will receive up to a $25m payout, equivalent to one year's salary, as part of his exit deal with 21st Century Fox … The payout follows the presenter's dismissal from Fox News this week after a 22-year career with the network and compares with the $40m collected by Roger Ailes, the network's former chairman, when he parted ways in similar circumstances. Financial Times, April 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Schools When I graduated from high school in 1973, less than two-thirds of black students  attended predominantly non-white schools; by 2018, 81 per cent did. Moreover, the percentage of black students in majority white schools almost halved between 1991 and 2018, from 34.5 to 19.1 per cent. Patti Waldmeir, Financial Times, November 14, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Small business And many vulnerable businesses cannot afford to wait weeks for a cash infusion [to help survive the coronavirus]. The median small company takes in $381 a day and spends $374, a 2016 analysis by the JPMorgan Chase Institute found. The typical business has enough savings to survive just 27 days. New York Times, March 23, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Small business A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that black-owned businesses in the US have been dispropor-  tionately impacted by lockdowns and changes in consumer behaviour during the pandemic. The overall number of active business owners in the US fell 15 per cent between February and May 2020, but African-American business owners suffered a 26 per cent drop, while those controlled by Latinx owners fell 19 per cent, according to the report. After the 2008 financial crisis, fewer than 50 per cent of black-owned businesses sur- vived compared to 60 percent for white- owned businesses, according to a recent study from the Brookings Institute … Financial Times, August 27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot He weighs 120 but a 110 of those pounds are pure cock. Frank Sinatra portrayed by Ava Gardner © 2015 Kwiple.com
Social media Tapping a "Like" button is not friendship; it's a data point. Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, July/August 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Social Security In the United States, the poverty rate among older adults is now just 9 percent; if Social Security were not included in their income, it would be 40 percent. Almost one third of beneficiaries rely on the program for at least 90 percent of their income. Cass Sunstein, New York Review of Books, April 4, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union About 78 per cent of US workers live pay cheque to pay cheque, according to a 2017 study by CareerBuilder, a jobs portal. A survey the same year by the Federal Reserve found that nearly half of American families could not cover a $400 emergency expense without borrowing or selling something to do so. Financial Times, January 20, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union In 2011, only 8 per cent of Americans believed “there are other countries that are better than the US”, according to the Pew Research Center. But that proportion rose to 21 per cent in 2019, says Pew, and it is even higher – 36 per cent – among 18 to 29-year-olds (up from 12 per cent in 2011). For young voters on the left, it rises to 47 per cent. (The two surveys were conducted by different methods so might not be directly comparable.) Katrina Manson, Financial Times, May 7, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Statistics If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything. Ronald H. Coase © 2023 Kwiple.com
Statistics People don't want the right answers. They want a story. They don't think in statistical terms. Michael Lewis, Financial Times, December 10-11, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Statistics When statistics do not seem to make sense, I find it generally wiser to prefer sense to statistics. John Maynard Keynes © 2021 Kwiple.com
Stock markets The performance of the S&P 500 index is now the most concentrated it has been since the 1970s. Seven of the biggest constituents  — Apple, Microsoft, Google owner Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla and Meta — have ripped higher, gaining between 40 per cent and 180 per cent this year. The remaining 493 companies are, in aggregate, flat. Financial Times, June 15, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Supreme Court [L]ess than half of Democrats (47%) would trust the Supreme Court to fairly determine the winner of a contested election, compared to two-thirds of Republicans (67%). World Justice Project report on U.S. Rule of Law Trends and the 2024 Election © 2024 Kwiple.com
Tax avoidance The asymmetry between tech profits and the public interest needs to be corrected. In 2019, only the US, China and Japan had economies larger than the combined market capitalisation of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google and Microsoft. Lost revenues from the lack of tax on Silicon Valley’s largest companies are at $100bn over the past ten years, according to Fair Tax Mark. The OECD puts the total cost of corporate tax avoidance to governments worldwide at up to $240bn. Marietje Schaake, Financial Times, May 20, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Tax evasion By my estimate, the artificial shifting of profits to low-tax locales enables US companies to reduce their tax liabilities, in total, by about $130 billion a year. Gabriel Zucman, The Hidden Wealth of Nations  © 2016 Kwiple.com
Tax evasion In the United States, according to my estimate, offshore evasion costs about $35 billion annually. Gabriel Zucman, The Hidden Wealth of Nations  © 2016 Kwiple.com
Tax rates The wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the US paid an average federal individual tax rate of 8.2 per cent compared with 13 per cent by the average American taxpayer, according to a 2021 White House study. Financial Times, August 30, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Taxes Contrary to Mr. Trump's claim that the United States is one of the most heavily taxed nations, only South Korea, Chile and Mexico, among [the 35] O.E.C.D. countries, collect less in tax revenue  as a share of the economy. That means the American budget for things like prenatal care, low-income housing and worker training is simply not up to the task. Eduardo Porter, New York Times, October 11. 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Taxes To capture the financial reality of the richest Americans, ProPublica undertook an analysis that has never been done before. We compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year to how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in that same period. We're going to call this their true tax rate. The results are stark. According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That's a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%. ProPublica, June 8, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Taxes Today, the top one-tenth of one percent in America pay total taxes of about 3.2 percent of their net worth every year. Meanwhile, the 99.9 percent pay about 7.2 percent. Think about that: Collectively, all those teachers and waitresses and factory workers and computer programmers and small businesss owners are paying total taxes at more than double the rate of the thinnest slice at the top. For the four hundred richest households in America, the numbers are even more obscene. They pay taxes at a lower rate than any other group — including the poorest 10 percent of all Americans. Elizabeth Warren, Persist  [2021] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Teachers $59k Average amount owed by teachers with outstanding student loan debts $100k Minimum amount owed by one in five Black teachers The Nation, September 19/26, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Teachers Earlier this year the N.E.A. reported that when adjusted for inflation,  “the average salary of teachers has actually declined by an estimated 6.4 percent, or $3,644, over the past decade.” New York Times, September 13, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Teachers Over the past decade, the national average teacher salary has dropped 4.5 percent, adjusted for inflation, according to the National Education Association. In 2018, the Economic Policy Institute reported that teachers are paid 21.4 percent less than professionals with similar education and experience – a record-high pay gap, and a major reason the national teacher shortage is increasing. Alexandra Robbins, New York Times, March 20, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Technology But the third most costly building is almost certainly the giant semiconductor fabrication plant being built by TSMC in Taiwan for about $20bn. When operational next year, the facility will contain clean rooms the size of 22 football pitches in which silicon chips will be manufactured at dimensions that redefine the meaning of wafer-thin. At just 3 nanometres, TSMC's wafers will be as thick as the length your fingernail grows in three seconds. John Thornhill, Financial Times, February 25, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Terrorism In the CSIS [Center for Strategic and International Studies] study of 893 terrorist incidents on US soil between January 1994 and May 2020,  only 22 of the 3,086 deaths due to terrorism were caused by left-wing groups. Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Terrorism Two-thirds of its [America's] terrorist incidents last year were carried out by homegrown extremists from the far-right. That rose to 90 per cent in the first five months of this year. Edward Luce, Financial Times, September 10, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Thinking For 15 minutes, the team left participants alone in a lab room in which they could push a button and shock themselves if they wanted to. The results were startling:  Even though all participants had previously stated that they would pay money to avoid being shocked with electricity, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to inflict it on themselves rather than just sit there quietly and think. Science magazine, July 3, 2014 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trees Like humans, forests have always migrated for their survival, with new trees growing in more hospitable directions and older trees  dying where they are no longer best suited to live. The problem now is that they simply can’t move fast enough. The average forest migrates at a rate of roughly 1,640 feet each year, but to outrun climate change, it must move approximately 9,800 to 16,000 feet — up to 10 times as fast. And in most habitats, the impact of highways, suburban sprawl, and megafarms prevents forests from expanding much at all. Forests simply cannot escape climate change by themselves. Laura Markham, Mother Jones, November/December 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Ukraine Over the past 12 months, the US spent 0.21 per cent of GDP on military support for Ukraine. That is slightly less than it spent in an average year on in its ill-fated Afghanistan intervention. In Iraq the spend was three times larger.  The Korean war cost the US 13 times as much. Lend-Lease aid for the British empire in the second world war ran to 15 times as much in proportional terms. …  To support the American-led operation to oust Saddam Hussein from the oilfields of Kuwait, Germany gave three times as much as it is offering to Ukraine in bilateral aid. Adam Tooze, Financial Times, Feb. 24, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Unions In many corporations, the mentality is that any supervisor, whether a factory manager or retail manager, who fails to keep out a union is an utter failure. That means managers fight hard to quash unions. One study found that 57 percent of employers threatened to close operations when workers sought to unionize, while 47 percent threatened to cut wages or benefits and 34 percent fired union supporters during unionization drives. Steven Greenhouse, New York Times, August 3, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Veterans Almost a fifth of those arrested for the assault on Capitol Hill this year were former US military personnel — more than 20 times their share of the population. Edward Luce, Financial Times, September 11, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Veterans [F]or every $2 of the cuts Trump wants to make for services and benefits for veterans, which will total more than $154 billion over the next decade, Trump plans to give $3 to the adult children of millionaires and billionaires. Center for American Progress briefing, September 26, 2017 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Violence By rich-world standards, America is a staggeringly violent country. The murder rate is six times higher than it is in Britain, France or Germany and 20 times higher than in Japan. In 2020, one in 700 black men aged 18 to 24 was murdered. Violence is now not only cutting short the lives of over 24,000 people per year. It is also devastating entire communities, as businesses and middle-class people leave crime-ridden neighborhoods. Plausible estimates put the social cost of murder at over $400bn per year, around 2% of America's GDP. The Economist, September 17, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Voter ID laws Of the eleven states with the highest black turnout in 2008, seven adopted stricter voter ID laws, and of the twelve states that experienced the highest rates of Hispanic population growth between 2000 and 2010, nine passed laws making it harder to vote. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Voting rights In forty-eight states, you can't vote if you're in prison, but in every state, you can run for Congress from prison. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, August 6, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
War In the early 20th century, the ratio of deaths in wars was roughly eight soldiers to every civilian. By the end of the 20th century, this was reversed. One soldier died for every eight civilians. We must reverse the meaning of that horrible American euphemism collateral damage. It is dead and injured soldiers  who are now the collateral damage of war. Civilian casualties are the main event. Fintan O'Toole, March 17, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Waste management The 23 million hogs in Iowa (about a third of the hogs in the US) along with Iowa's other livestock produce as much excrement every year as 168 million humans, or the “fecal equivalent” of the world's eleven biggest cities. Ian Frazier, New York Review of Books, February 9, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Water 0  Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation’s water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of America into some some of world’s most bountiful farmland, are being severely depleted. These declines are threatening irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a whole. … Of the nation’s 143,070 water systems, 128,362 rely primarily on groundwater, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. New York Times, August 28, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Water  One study found that 88 percent of water in  17 Western states was used by agriculture. Only 7 percent was consumed by homes. Alfalfa fields single-handedly drank up al-  most three times as much as all households. California produces a bounty of almonds, which gulp about 3.2 gallons of water for each almond, according to a 2019 study. Researchers say that the Southwest is experiencing a megadrought that is the worst in at least 1,200 years. Wells have been drying up as far north as Oregon, and the Great Salt Lake in Utah has shrunk by two-thirds. Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, May 15, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality The average full-time Amazon employee made $37,930 in 2020. In order to accumulate as much money as Bezos ($172 billion) … an employee would have had to start working in the Pliocene Epoch (4.5 million years ago, when hominids had just started standing on two feet!). Mona Chalabi, New York Times Magazine, April 7, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality Billionaires increased their combined global wealth by almost a fifth last year to a record $6tn (£4.5tn) – more than twice the GDP of the UK. There are now 1,542 dollar billionaires across the world, after 145 multi- millionaires saw their wealth tick over into nine-zero fortunes last year, The Guardian, October 26, 2017 Average billionaire's wealth: $6,000,000,000,000 / 1,542 = $3,891,050,583 Median wealth per U.S. adult in 2016: $44,977 Avg. billionaire's wealth vs. med. U.S. adult's: $3,891,050,583 / $44,977 = 86,512 times © 2017 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the total number of billionaires around the world rose by 412 to a record of 3,228, [Shanghai-based] Hurun [Research Institute] said. China added 259 billionaires last year, more than the rest of the world combined, according to Hurun. Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality Economic disparities are also growing by race. In 1963, median family wealth was $43,000 higher for whites than for African Americans. By 2013, it was $123,000 higher (and $120,000 higher than for Hispanics, for whom there isn't data from 1963). Even in the few years since the financial crash, wealth inequality has grown along racial lines. Ganesh Sitaraman, The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution © 2021 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists from the University of California at Berkeley, earlier this year estimated that US billionaires had collective wealth of $4.25tn, of which $2.7tn represented untaxed gains. Financial Times, July 24, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality  The housing-value gap between households earning more than 200% of their area's median income and other homeowners widened significantly over the decade. In 2010, high-income homeowners held 28% of of all U.S. housing wealth. By 2020, that figure rose to 42.6%. The share of housing wealth held by middle-income households declined to 37.5% in 2020, from 43.8% in 2010. Low-income housing wealth fell to 19.8% in 2020, from 28.2% in 2010. Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality The median U.S. household net worth is $118,200. Bezos has $172,000,000,000. So … how does that compare? Mona Chalabi, New York Times Magazine, April 7, 2022, whose answers are physical comparisons — e.g., if household worth = size of a white blood cell, then Bezos' worth = size of a finback whale [An arithmetic comparison is that Bezos's net worth of $172,000,000,000 = net worth of 1,455,161 median households] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality One hundred and forty-five people became billionaires last year, according to UBS. Data gathered by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index reveal that in 2017 the world's richest 500 people became $1tn richer. That is more than three times the GDP of Denmark. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the three richest men in the US own more wealth than the entire bottom half of the country's population.  Jenny Lee, Financial Times, February 27, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality Right now, the top 10 per cent of households in the US own 87 per cent of equities. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, May 30, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality These two families' vast wealth (reportedly above $175 billion for the Waltons, and $120 billion for Charles and David Koch in 2018) is as large as the total wealth of a staggeringly large proportion of Americans—as of 2016, the most recent year for which a reliable comparison could be made, the Waltons and the Kochs held as much as the total wealth of the bottom 50 percent. Joseph Stiglitz, People, Power and Profits © 2019 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality The top 0.1 percent and the bottom 90 percent of American households hold close to the same amount of wealth. That's one of the statistics most frequently cited to describe the problem of economic inequality in the United States today. Here are some others: Nearly two-thirds of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck. An estimated 41 percent — 135 million people — are considered either poor or low-income. Eighteen percent of households earn less than $25,000 a year. Even before the pandemic hit, one in four Black families had a net worth of zero. New York Times, July 13, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality Wealth management loans at JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi and Morgan Stanley have grown 50 per cent in the past four years, compared with only 9 per cent for their overall loan book. … JPMorgan and Citi are now lending more to a small number of ultra-high net worth clients than to their millions of credit card customers. A decade ago, JPMorgan was lending five times as much to credit card customers as it did to private clients. … Controversially, the borrowings can also serve to lower taxes. Instead of selling assets to raise cash — and facing a capital gains tax — high net-worth clients obtain funding by borrowing against the value of their investments. Financial Times, May 27, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Weddings Last year,  approximately 13,000 weddings in America cost $1 million or more, according to the consulting firm Think Splendid. Xochitl Gonzalez, The Atlantic, July/August 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Whites  As late as the 1996 presidential election, counties that were at least 85 percent white and earned less than the national  median income split about evenly between  Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican Bob Dole. In the 2016 election, such counties went 658 for Donald Trump and two for Hillary Clinton.  Robert Kuttner. New York Review of Books, July 21, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Women Women compromise 26 percent of town's workers headline, Westport News [Connecticut], September 20, 1995 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Work … for most people work brings few rewards beyond a payslip. As the pollster Gallup showed in its momentous survey of working life in 155 countries published in 2017, only one in 10 western Europeans described themselves as engaged in their jobs. This is perhaps unsurprising. After all, in another survey conducted by YouGov in 2015, 37 per cent of working British adults said their jobs were not making any meaningful contribution to the world. James Suzman, Financial Times, August 28, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Wretched excess In Cabinet meeting, Pence praises Trump once every 12 seconds for three minutes straight headline, Washington Post, December 20, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
 
Wretched excess A penthouse at the Manhattan megatower 432 Park Avenue is slashing its price by more than 20% to $139 million, according to the listing agents. … [Fawaz] Al Hokair bought the Billionaires' Row penthouse in 2016 for $87.66 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a New York apartment, records show. The unit has never been lived in; the seller hasn't spent the night there once, [Tai] Alexander [one of the listing agents] said. A representative for Al Hokair declined to comment. Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2023 © 2023Kwiple.com