Significant Digits For Tuesday, March 31, 2015

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35th place

It’s tax time, the magical time of year when some Americans owe Uncle Sam money, and some lucky others get their interest-free loan to the government returned to them. U.S. income tax rates are, for most Americans, low relative to what people in other countries are taxed. For instance, a U.S. married couple making two times the average wage and who have two kids have a tax rate that’s in 35th place among 39 OECD observed nations. [Pew Research Center]

49 percent

Americans are split on whether businesses that provide wedding services should be allowed to refuse to serve same-sex couples if the business has religious objections to the union. A Pew Research survey found 49 percent of Americans say businesses should not be allowed to refuse to serve a gay wedding, while 47 percent said they should be allowed to refuse services. [Pew Research Center]

63.5 degrees Fahrenheit

Antarctica had it’s warmest recorded day last Tuesday, almost hitting room temperature. [The Independent]

64.1 percent

According to the FBI, that’s the national murder clearance rate in the U.S. In other words, if you get killed, there’s only a two-in-three chance the police will eventually arrest or identify whom they believe did it. That rate was 90 percent in the sixties. [NPR]

$50,000 to $500,000

How much the company HolacracyOne charges companies to serve as consultants as they switch to Holacracy, a management system where, er, you get rid of management. It breaks employees into teams that lead themselves. Shoe company Zappos is one organization adapting it, and needless to say (former) management isn’t super thrilled at the process of being stripped of its titles. [Fast Company]

235,000 ripped-off, minority borrowers

The Justice Department is investigating companies that allegedly targeted minority borrowers with the costliest car loans they offered. When investigating Ally Financial, the government said it estimated that 235,000 minority borrowers paid higher interest rates than white borrowers. [New York Times]

$350,000

The Atlanta Falcons were hit with a $350,000 fine and stripped of a 2016 fifth-round draft pick after it was discovered the team was pumping fake crowd noise into the Georgia Dome over the past two years. When asked why it did it, the franchise insisted it has fans but that they had totally met back at summer camp, that the fans were super hot but, like, lived across the country so you’ll probably never get the chance to meet them; but believe them, the Atlanta Falcons assured those present, the fans are just so into them. At press time, the Atlanta Falcons were offering to show reporters text messages they had received from their fans to prove they totally existed. [ESPN]

$14 million

The amount of money that Meerkat, a live streaming video app that launched several weeks ago, raised in the month it owned the market. But now Meerkat has competition, from Twitter’s Periscope app, and Meerkat isn’t holding up well. [BGR]

$16.9 million

The amount of money New York City speed cameras have charged drivers in the cameras’ first year of operation. Of that, $5.2 million worth of tickets haven’t yet been paid. [Gothamist]

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FiveThirtyEight