February 4, 2023
It’s happened again. I can’t come up with anything blog-worthy, so I turn to a recent Harper’s Index to give you some factual tidbits upon which to ruminate. To wit:
Percentage of U.S. teens who have advocated for political issues on social media in the past year: 10
Who have used a hashtag related to a political or social issue: 7
Percentage of Americans who believe that political demonstration is “very important”: 13
Percentage by which independents are less likely than other voters to know their representatives’ party affiliation: 24
To know which party controls Congress: 20
Percentage of eligible Americans who vote: 63
Of Hungarians: 71
Of Uruguayans: 95
Percentage by which fewer people watched the U.S. midterm election results on television last year than in 2018: 30
Percentage by which threats against members of Congress increased between 2017 and 2021: 144
Percentage of Americans who say political advertisements have “a great deal” of influence on how they vote: 8
Average number of words a man says on cable news before he is interrupted: 81
Of words a woman says: 73
Portion of Americans who believe the media prioritizes profits over the public interest: 3/4
Who say they would be willing to pay for their news: 1/5
Chances that a U.S. college graduate with a journalism degree regrets this choice of major: 9 in 10
Percentage by which Republicans are more likely to feel unfavorably toward the media than the tobacco industry: 20
Percentage by which women are more likely than men to rely on TikTok as a news source: 59
By which men are more likely than women to rely on Reddit as a news source: 231
Portion of Americans who watch shows or movies with subtitles on “most of the time”: 1/2
Of Gen Z-ers who do: 7/10
Percentage by which young adults are more likely to smoke cigarettes than adults aged 65 or older: 50
By which young adults are more likely to smoke only marijuana than to smoke only cigarettes: 270
Number of hours per week the average American spent with friends in 2021: 3
Percentage by which this number has decreased since 2013: 58
Percentage change in the past decade in the amount of time the average American spends alone: +23
Percentage of U.S. households that had a single occupant in 1960: 13
In 2022: 29
Percentage increase since 2000 in the number of Americans aged 50 or older who live alone: 66
Percentage of those Americans who are female: 60
Percentage by which black Americans aged 65 or older are more likely than white ones to live alone: 12
Median net wealth of U.S. homeowners aged 65 and older: $343,100
Of U.S. renters aged 65 and older: $5,800
Factor by which married couples aged 25 to 34 have a greater median net worth than their single peers: 9
Portion of divorced U.S. full-time workers who say that ending their marriage improved their job performance: 2/5
Percentage increase since 2019 in the number of U.S. daters looking for a partner who wants to marry: 28
Percentage of U.S. daters who say they have fallen in love with someone they weren’t initially attracted to: 49
Who say they are willing to date long-distance: 53
Median age to which Americans expect to live: 82
Number of years by which this exceeds the CDC’s estimate: 6