You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
$3.75
Many cities and states have raised their minimum wages in recent years, but many of those laws leave at least one group out: tipped workers, such as waiters. Among the states, the gap is most pronounced in Massachusetts, where minimum wage earners make $11 per hour while tipped workers make $3.75 an hour. [FiveThirtyEight]
17 miles
A crack in Antarctica’s fourth-largest ice shelf, named Larcen C, grew by 17 miles in the past two months. It’s now over 100 miles long and just 20 miles away from reaching the end of the shelf. When that happens, we’ll get a staggeringly huge iceberg, and “Larsen C will be at its smallest size ever recorded.” [The New York Times]
51-50
Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate to confirm Betsy DeVos as the secretary of eduction. Two Republicans, and every Democrat, voted against her. The 50 “no” votes DeVos received are more than any education secretary since the position was established in 1979. [FiveThirtyEight]
960 percent
Lady Gaga’s digital song sales are up about 960 percent compared to the day before the Super Bowl, according to Nielsen Music. Seems like her Super Bowl halftime show was a hit. [USA Today]
$1,000
New York City fined two New York City property managers for listing short-term rentals on Airbnb — “the first casualties of a newly enforceable law meant to curb illegal Airbnb listings,” according to the New York Post. The two were charged with 17 violations total; each violation comes with a $1,000 penalty. [New York Post]
$99,900
Amount of money an eBay bidder put up for a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto that looks like Harambe, the 17-year-old silverback gorilla shot by employees at the Cincinnati Zoo (after a kid fell into Harambe’s enclosure). [ABC News]
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