You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
2 percent
Less than 2 percent of individual tax returns last year were filed through a free online federal income tax filing service offered to lower- and middle-income families by 13 private tax prep groups. About 70 percent of taxpayers are eligible for the free service. [ProPublica]
15 percent
Domino’s Pizza — through reinvesting in product quality and investments in digital ordering tech — saw its share of the American pizza market rise from 9 percent in 2009 to 15 percent in 2016. [Bloomberg]
20 lawyers
President Trump wants to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. In order to do that, the government needs to get land to build the wall on. If people don’t want to sell them land to build the wall, the government is going to condemn it and seize it by eminent domain. To do that, Trump’s budget request includes funding for 20 additional Department of Justice lawyers. [The Texas Observer via Eric Umansky]
43 percent
New checking account openings in February were down 43 percent at Wells Fargo compared with February 2016, and credit card applications were down 55 percent in the same period, a huge decline since the fake account scandal that hit the bank in September. [Bloomberg]
Article 50
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May told the European council that she’ll trigger article 50 — beginning the process by which the U.K. will formally leave the European Union — on March 29. This guarantees that the exit will be complete by March 29, 2019. [The Guardian]
625,000
Peru has been slammed with the worst flooding in decades over the past four days; 625,000 people have been affected, 70,000 of whom have lost homes. Heavy rains are projected to continue into next month. [IFRC]
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