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47 Stats That Make Us Feel Weird About How the World Works

By:: Brian C. Miller; Cracked Writers

November 01, 2023

47 Stats That Make Us Feel Weird About How the World Works

Statistics broadly tell us how the world works and what people are doing. But while these numbers frequently seem liked cold hard evidence of facts, they’re just as prone to manipulation and storytelling as nearly anything else in the world. To that end, we have a series of examples that might shake your understanding of the world, but also plenty that have been used and presented in a number of misleading ways.

47 Extinct Species

CRACKED.COM Over A DOZEN SPECIES go extinct every day. Up to 50% of all species could be near extinction by 2050. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

46 American Guns

A full 70% OF GUNS seized by police in Mexico can be traced back to the United States. CRACKED COM — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

45 Stephanie Meyer's Books

CRACKED.COM In late 2008 and early 2009, 1in5 BOOKS SOLD was written by Stephenie Meyer. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

44 Cheerleaders vs Players

CRACKED.COM NFL cheerleaders are paid between $75 and $150 per game. Meanwhile, players earn salaries of six figures a year, at the very least. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

43 Paid Leave

GRAGKED.COM Workers in the U.S. are legally entitled to exactly 0 DAYS of paid leave per year That's about infinity less than pretty much every other country. Spain 36 Germany 30 UK 28 Japan 10 U.S. Whatever your employer feels like. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

42 Falling asleep at the wheel

About HALF of airline pilots admit to falling asleep during flight. ONE THIRD report waking up to find the other pilot asleep as well. CRACKED COM — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

41 Falling out of bed VS Plane crashes

CRACKED.COM You're more likely to die FALLING OUT OF BED than in a plane crash. Both likelihoods are very slim: 1 in 2 million for the bed against 1 in 5 million for the plane. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

40 Homeless war veterans

Over 12% of homeless adults in the U.S. are war veterans. CRACKED.COM — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

39 College as an Investment

CRACKED COM This graph by The Business Insider implies that people shouldn't go to college because it's a bad investment. The diminishing financial return of higher education Costs of 4-уг degree vs. earnings of 4-уг degree $95,000 Tuition, Room & Board $85,000 Bachelors Degree Earnings $75,000 $65,000 $55,000 $45,000 $35,000 '64 '70 '80 '90 '00 '10 Source Source: U S. Consus Date A NGES Table 345. Notes:All figures have been acjusted to 2010 dollars using the Consumer Price Index from the eLS. That earning figure is per year and it makes no sense to put it in the same graph — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

38 The Elephant Graph

The famous elephant graph is deployed by professional optimists to demonstrate that global prosperity is lifting up the very poor as well as the very rich. income growth rate (percent) 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 percentiles of the global income distribution But since the graph charts growth as a percentage of current income, it equates the poor gaining a few dollars with the rich gaining millions. CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

37 Domestic Violence

By taking a study out of context, an article in The Washington Post came to the questionable conclusion that women should get married to avoid domestic violence. FIGURE 7 Intimate partner violence against females, by household Although the rate of composition, 1993-2010 Rate per 1,000 females domestic violence is BC Maried adults without children indeed highest among Manried adults with children One female adult with children V. One female adult only single mothers, the Other household composition 4 article fails to account for other x factors, such as : 91 95 56 '97 989 92 100 DI IT 01 & - — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

36 Bill Gates' Net Worth

CRACKED.COM In 2009, Bill Gates' net worth was over $50 billion, more than the GDP of Costa Rica. Net worth is defined as the wealth accumulated by a person throughout their entire career while Gross Domestic Product is the wealth accumulated by a country in a single year. Doesn't seem so impressive anymore, does it? — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

35 Father's Day

Many UK news sites attempted to paint a bleak image of Father's Day in 2019, stating that one in five fathers have not seen their children on Father's Day. In the original survey by Fathers 4 Justice, the actual question was, Have you or someone you know experienced any of the following? 21% of the fathers surveyed reported having experienced this at least once. CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

34 Gun Violence in Schools

CRACKED.COM Everytown, a non-profit group to prevent gun violence, tweeted that the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High was the 18th school shooting in 2018. HIGH SCHOOL Although school shootings are horrible despite their numbers, the statistic was misleading due to the mischaracterization of school shootings to mean incidents where a gun is fired in a school compound, which includes at least seven unrelated incidents, some of which were suicides or accidental discharge of firearms near a school. — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

33 Food Stamp Fraud

Fox News used the fact that food stamp fraud cost the government $70 million to argue that it may be time to stop the program. NEWS insider LATEST TRENDING PEOPLE SHOWS TRUMP TRANSITION Food Stamp Fraud at All-Time High: Is It Time to End the Program? f share this email With a budget of around $67 billion, the money lost to fraud actually made up less than 1% 99.9% of the of total food budget. stamp In other words, about N-T HIDITI reached the people who money nT successfully were meant to have it. CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

32 More garbage than fish

CRACKED.COM We dump THREE POUNDS OF GARBAGE into the ocean for EVERY POUND OF FISH we catch. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

31 Glee's Billboard Hits

The cast of Glee has had 207 SONGS on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That's three times as many as the Beatles. CRACKED.COM — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

30 Adam Sandler Movies

CRACKED.COM NEC HOME ESTE 1270 adidas LEGAL E DESDER MIRRORE FORNO 5 I DELAR g Adam Sandler movies have grossed OVER and $5 BILLION worldwide. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

29 Line life, baby

The average person spends FIVE YEARS OF THEIR LIFE waiting in line. CRACKED.COM — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

28 WASH YOUR HANDS! COME ON!

CRACKED.COM A survey of 6,000 people found that 1 IN 3 MEN don't wash their hands after using the bathroom (compared with 1 in 10 women). So if you shake their hand, you might as well be shaking something else. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

27 99.9% Caffeine-Free

Nestle Hot Cocoa Mix has '99.9% caffeine-free on its packaging. Chocolate Nestle FLAVOR Made with Real Nestle Cocoa 99.9% Caffeine-free o Low Fat NET WT 0.71 OZ (20.2 g) The thing is, that's the percentage of mass and caffeine is a potent substance. To put the number in perspective, consider that a 20 OZ Starbucks coffee has 415 mg (0.014 oz) of caffeine, making it also 99.9% caffeine-free; in fact, most regular coffees are basically 99.9% caffeine-free. In other words, that's just regular chocolate, not decaffeinated. CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

26 Violent Crimes

The Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization, claimed that 83% of violent crimes between white and black Americans are committed by blacks against whites. The figure came from comparing the numbers of white victims by black assailants (430,000) to black victims by white assailants (90,162). This overlooks that the majority of all victims of crime are white, because they make up 70% of the U.S. population. The truth is that blacks committed 15.4% of violent crimes against whites (the number is 15.9% for whites against blacks), while 67% of the assailants were white. CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

25 Welfare Recipients

This graph from The Weekly Standard implies a significant increase in the number of people receiving welfare. Over 100 Million People In U.S. Now Receiving Some Form Of Federal Welfare - Figures Conne Meuny-Yested Reflime Non Social Security Or Medicure (06,000,000 [@4.000,000 100 000 are 100,000,000 Number of Americans 98,000,500 96,000,000 04,000,300 2809 DI 2009 Q2 2009 QT ZUK Q4 2019 Q1 2010 Q2 zum Q3 2010 Q4 IDE: DI 2011 02 Figures . abive Source: LA Людия Produced by Seith Budget Construct Republican Bestley Member toff Although the number is legit, the chart isn't because the y-axis begins at 94 million. This is — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

24 Increased Risk

The sentence doing/eating/ drinking___will increase the chance of cancer/heart attack/dying by__% often doesn't tell the whole story because it doesn't But show the initial risk. For example, on average colon cancer occurs in 4.5% of American males and eating bacon Anaa increases the chance by 18%. It doesn't mean that men who eat bacon on a regular basis have a 22.5% chance of getting cancer, it just means that the chance goes from 4.5% to 5.3% or an increase of 0.8 percentage point. CRACKED COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

23 Bra Sizes

Shopped for a bra? Then you might have come across this stat- 80 PERCENT OF women WeAR THE WRONG size BRA. The numbers are based on a 1998 study by a plastic surgeon named Edward Pechter and have since become the golden mantra for bra brands all over the world. But what they don't tell you is that - the study was done on only 100 women the cup sizes taken ranged from AA to DDD (Cup sizes can range upto O) In short, the study was neither large nor diverse enough to conclusively state the fact. In fact, due to — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

22 Wasted Food

CRACKED.COM Americans waste over 141 TRILLION calories' worth of food every year. That's 1,249 calories for each person every day, according to the Department of Agriculture. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

21 Modern Worldwide Slavery

CRACKED.COM At least 25 MILLION PEOPLE live as slaves around the world. That's more than the entire number shipped from Africa during the entire history of the transatlantic slave trade. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

20 Prescription Painkillers

Prescription MORE painkiller overdoses cause DEATHS than cocaine and heroin. According to the CDC, 17,029 people overdosed from prescription opioids in 2017, compared with 15,482 from heroin and 13,942 from cocaine. CRACKED.COM — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

19 Fatphobia

Almost 15% of women say they'd rather be blind than fat. A survey by Arizona State University found stigma around obesity is so pervasive that many women say they'd prefer to be blind or suffer severe depression instead. CRACKED COM — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

18 Walmart Wages

CRACKED COM In 2013, Walmart turned a profit of $17.2 BILLION. That same year, Walmart employees got $2.66 BILLION in government assistance due to low wages. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

17 Donald Trump's Voter Base

52% of women voted for Donald Trump. WOMEN WOMEN FOR FOR UMP TRUMP - - 1 adidas - RUMP WOMEN FOR FOR OMEN TRUMP - This is an achievement Trump likes to bring up often, and it's true. Well, it's true if when you say women you actually mean white women. If you include all other races, he got 41% of the female vote. CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

16 Unemployment Rate

The jobs situation isn't as great as you'd think. Sure, the unemployment rate is very low (3.7% in June 2019), but that doesn't take into account people who want a job but have given up searching for one. The labor force participation rate includes those people, and it paints a less rosy picture. For four years, it's been hovering around 62% (the higher, the better), its worst level since 1977. CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

15 Immigration Rates

Trump's administration claimed the immigrant naturalization rate in 2018 was the highest in adidas W five years. adidas Service ، No At 756,800 naturalizations, it was indeed the highest since 2013 but only because more people applied than in previous years. Based on the approval rate, however, the naturalization rate was actually pretty steady ARGENTINA (89% in 2018 and 90% in 2017.) C CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

14 AOC's Polling

CRACKED.COM National polls show Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is extremely unpopular. They actually only show she's extremely unpopular with Republicans. In March, a poll found that 74% of Republicans viewed AOC negatively, while only 7% of Democrats had a negative opinion of her. Her overall favorability is low because 44% of Democrats that were polled didn't know enough about her to have an opinion, while only 23% of Republicans said the same. — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

13 Incarceration Rates

You've probably heard that the U.S. incarcerates large numbers of people. For example, in 2019, 2,282,800 people are locked up. But over 540,000 of those are just awaiting trial behind bars. Most of them are there because they can't pay bail, and most of them won't get a prison sentence. Without them, there are 1,742,800 incarcerated people in 2019 - nearly a quarter lower than the reported figure. CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

12 Fear of Bullying

CRACKED.COM According to British surveys, over 25% of children stop doing things they love, and almost 50% hide a talent, out of fear of being bullied. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

11 DNA Evidence

Since 1989, 365 convicted prisoners have been exonerated by DNA evidence. 28% had confessed. 20 were on death row. CRACKED COM — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

10 Hippo Deaths

Hippos kill 3,000 PEOPLE every year. Sharks kill fewer than six. Where are all the Hipponado movies? CRACKED COM — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

9 Military vs Cancer

The U.S. military budget for 2019 is about $700 BILLION. Meanwhile, the budget for the National Cancer Institute was $30.6 BILLION for the whole 2012-2017 period. Did you know that cancer kills more Americans IN A SINGLE YEAR than have died in EVERY WAR THE COUNTRY HAS EVER FOUGHT combined? CRACKED .COM — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

8 Death Row Inmates

CRACKED.COM These are the racial demographics of the United States: White Latino Black Other And these are the racial demographics of death row inmates: Do you notice anything peculiar? — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

7 Shoe Sale Drops

In 2018, Nike's shares had a two percent drop after the launch of its campaign, which featured the controversial American footballer Colin Kaepernick. nikereact But the drop doesn't have to do with Colin being featured in the campaign as many have claimed, since Adidas and Puma also had the same percentage drop, which may have had to do more with the markets' strong run prior to the incident. CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

6 Falling Birth Rates

There's no reason to worry about falling CRACKED.COM birth rates. True, the U.S. fertility rate is only 1.73 children per woman, an all-time low. But researchers get that number by assuming women currently in their 20s, say, will have as many kids in their 40s, as women currently in their 40s are having. And young women today are postponing having kids until later in life, so they'll have more kids than that assumption predicts. — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

5 Cancer Rates

If you keep hearing about cancer rates rising over the years, don't be too alarmed. IT'S MOSTLY BECAUSE ...AND CANCER RISK WE LIVE LONGER NOW... INCREASES WITH AGE AGE 80 60 40 I 20 0 1960 2012 0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 Cases per 100,000 people Life expectancy Scientists estimate about two-thirds of the increase is due to longevity as cancer is most common past the age of sixty. In the past, fewer people had cancer because many people didn't live past sixty due to diseases that modern medicine can now treat successfully. Regardless, it doesn't hurt to live — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

4 Journalist Deaths

No, journalists aren't being killed in record numbers. It's true that 63 professional journalists were killed in 2018 but, from 2009 to 2018, 70.2 professional journalists were killed per year on average. So, thankfully, 2018 wasn't a very deadly year for journalists. CRACKED.COM — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

3 Stock Plunges

CRACKED.COM In April 2016, over one million people pledged to boycott Target after Target restated their policy of allowing transgender people to use the bathroom/changing room of their choice. This boycott was cited as the reason that Target's stock price plunged. It's true that Target's stock price plummeted immediately after the boycott started but it also plummeted three years before the boycott. That's what stocks do. 72.50 85 70.00 80 75 67.50 70 65.00 65 62.50 . M A S August, 2013 Late April, 2016 — Source: 23 Stats That Are Misleading B.S. (But Technically Correct)

2 The military is EXPENSIVE

GRACKED.COM The budget for the Curiosity rover is about the same amount the U.S. military spends in a little over 30 HOURS. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

1 Almost Everyone Will Get an STD

CRACKED.COM Over 80 O/ % of sexually active adults will catch an STD at some point. Most will never know, as many STDs show no symptoms. — Source: 25 Unsettling Stats That'll Shake Your Foundations

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