You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
19 percent
The percentage of European Union citizens older than age 65. The median age in Europe is 43, compared to 38 in the United States. [Quartz]
$40 per bottle
That’s the price for a bottle of supplements from HVMN, a start up that uses lots of technobabble to talk about biohacking. When a study last May found that the nootropics it was shilling were less effective than a cup of coffee, they changed the name. [CNBC]
45 percent
That’s the percentage of dry-goods bulk ships on the seas that are not carrying any cargo. This is due to inefficiencies, since there aren’t always the same amounts of imports and exports from the same place. This has a huge effect on global trade. [Quartz]
51st place
Japan needs immigrants to slow its population decline, but not enough want to come to the country. In 2017, there was a 149,000-person increase in foreigners living in Japan compared to a roughly 308,000-person decline in Japanese people. Japan is in 51st place in a ranking of where high skilled talent would prefer to move, the lowest in Asia. [Bloomberg]
60.8 grams
That’s the U.K. average daily sugar consumption for children aged 7 to 10, way higher than the 24 grams recommended. In an attempt to get around new regulations intended to decrease sugar content of children’s cereal by 20 percent, Kellogg’s is arguing that Tony the Tiger — who sells Frosted Flakes in the U.S. and Frosties in the U.K. — is an adult cartoon for grownups, not intended to sell to children. [The Telegraph]
$1 trillion
The GOP is reportedly reworking its tax package on the news that the Senate bill would cost $1.4 trillion and (after accounting for inflation) only generate enough economic growth to lower that cost by $407 billion. As a result, there’s a $1 trillion funding hole in the tax proposal. [Bloomberg]
CORRECTION (Dec. 1, 2017, 4:52 p.m.): An earlier version of this article gave the incorrect cost of the Senate’s tax bill before factoring in economic growth. Its estimated cost is $1.4 trillion, not $1.4 billion.
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