217,000: Every day, 217,000 people rise out of extreme poverty globally, 325,000 more people gain access to electricity, and 300,000 to clean drinking water.
107: Germany’s ruling parties have been unable to form a coalition for 107 days, the longest period the country has gone without a government since its reunification in 1990. When Germany sneezes, does Europe catch a cold?
41: The informal sector — the part of the economy where people work/employ without declaring it to the government — comprises 41 percent of the GDP of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. That’s a massive amount of untaxed income and unregulated working conditions.
2: US life expectancy has fallen for two years in a row for the first time in more than half a century. The biggest increase in mortality was registered among 25- to 34-year-olds, in part because drug overdoses among this group have increased 50% since 2014.
1: About one million Indians enter the workforce every month. Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to create 10 million jobs a year but has delivered only a few hundred thousand — will voters remember that in the 2019 general election?