You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
3 to 2 vote
In a 3 to 2 vote, the conservative faction of the Federal Communications Commission voted to remove consumer protections that forbid internet providers from limiting or prioritizing traffic to different websites and made it harder to put future net neutrality rules into place. [The Verge]
6 to 8 percent
A 2010 study found that every 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate the year someone graduated college led to a 6 to 8 percent drop in starting salary, a disadvantage that has been plaguing millennials who came out of school during and after the recession. [The Huffington Post High Line]
295 miles
BYD and Bombardier will add 295 miles of new monorail track by 2019, which would more than double the existing amount of monorails on Earth. We only have like 254 miles of monorails right now. But we’re entering a real mono-renaissance, with tons of planned mono-work in Asia and Latin America. [Quartz]
$18,518.50
An Uber rider was charged $18,518.50 for a 21-minute trip in downtown Toronto. The rider has been refunded his money. [CBC]
$18.2 million
That’s how much the government paid starting in 2007 to accumulate land almost half the length of the 120 miles of the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas. The government aggressively relied on eminent domain, and an investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found the Department of Homeland Security worked around laws protecting landowners, shook down poorer landowners, screwed up hundreds of condemnation cases and often had to redo settlements. [The Texas Tribune]
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