You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
1.4 percent
Percentage of U.S. consumers with a FICO credit score that is a perfect 850. The number is hugely consequential when it comes to securing credit, and many aspire to that top figure and will use all the idiosyncrasies of the algorithm to get there. Indeed, the percentage of Americans with 800+ credit scores is steadily rising. [Bloomberg]
8 out of 7,287
Only eight of 7,287 music albums released between 2012 and 2016 got generally unfavorable (that is, bad) reviews on Metacritic. This means that either humans got really, really good at not making bad music; there’s a systemic disincentive for doling out bad reviews; or aggregating ratings is an incomplete portrait of the musical scene. [The Wall Street Journal]
11 points
Generally speaking when the president is at an approval rating of 38 percent we’d expect (historically) the president’s party to lose 11 points or so off its House margin of victory. If the midterms held today in the current congressional playing field, the GOP would lose the national House vote by 10 points. [FiveThirtyEight]
18.6
Average number of career receptions for the five wideouts remaining on the New York Jets. It’s really hard for a team to go 0-16 in the NFL, but let’s just say there’s a reason the Jets are in the conversation this year. [FiveThirtyEight]
21 percent
Percentage of shoppers at natural food supermarkets who didn’t know or had at best a rough notion of what “hormone/steroid free” means vis-a-vis buying meat. Still, those buzz words have pulled major chicken producers like Perdue towards investing in antibiotic free birds. [Bloomberg]
233,305
Number of U.S. industrial robots. Most of the robots are in just 10 states led by Michigan which has 28,000, Ohio with 20,400 and Indiana with 19,400. [Brookings]
If you see a significant digit in the wild, send it to @WaltHickey.