You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
1 percent to 1.5 percent of overall cost
Typical cost of cancellation insurance for a music festival. Insuring this type of event — where a bunch of young people get hammered in public — is intrinsically difficult but absolutely necessary. The Fyre Festival may have made it impossible for similar future events to even get off the ground with its catastrophic failure to launch. [Bloomberg]
2.5 percent
Wages are essentially flat in the United States, growing only 2.5 percent from June 2016 to June 2017. Factor in inflation, and that level is close to 1 percent growth. [The Guardian]
3 campaign members
The New York Times has reported that three close associates of President Trump’s who were working on his campaign — campaign chairman Paul Manafort, son-in-law Jared Kushner and son Donald Trump Jr. — met with a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton in June 2016. [The New York Times]
10 years
There’s been considerable research into the negative economic effects of a Walmart entering a town, but now we’re getting a look at the deleterious effects of its departure. A supercenter that was open for a decade in McDowell County, West Virginia, closed last year, and its absence has led to a loss of local tax base, a loss of jobs and a lack of access to fresh food for residents of the U.S. county that ranks last in the country in life expectancy. [The Guardian]
15 percent
The nominal price of a U.S. home has returned to pre-crash levels, on average, while inflation-adjusted home prices remain below the heady peaks of 2007. Still, everyone hasn’t enjoyed the rebound equally. Prices in 15 percent of markets — including Pittsburgh and San Francisco — have risen above the peak levels of the mid-2000s, while prices in markets including Cleveland and those in much of Florida have not. [NPR]
$117 million
Sony’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” appears to be a hit, pulling in $117 million domestically over its opening weekend and beating out enormous expectations. [Variety]
If you see a significant digit in the wild, send it to @WaltHickey.