You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
15.1 percent
Congratulations, songwriters, you’re getting a raise: the Copyright Royalty Board ruled that songwriters will get a 15.1 percent share of streaming revenues over the next five years, up from the current rate of 10.5 percent. Streaming providers like Spotify and Pandora will lose money as a result, but it’s the biggest such raise that rights holders have ever seen. [Bloomberg]
29.4 minutes
(Sponsored by Mott & Bow) When most people put on a new pair of jeans, they don’t really think about the time and effort that went into making it. But a quality pair of comfortable, stylish premium men’s jeans, like these, requires 29.4 minutes of manufacturing time. That’s 29.4 actual work-minutes, excluding idle time that the jeans spend in queues, to get the ideal look and fit.
47 percent
The percentage of foreign investment in the state of Kentucky that comes from Japan. Parts of Kentucky have long been hotbeds of Japanese food and culture in the U.S. Demand for Japanese specialty stores and restaurants throughout the region spiked as Japanese employees came to Kentucky, and U.S. employees visited Japan for training. [NPR]
12,000 people
Around 12,000 people have been hospitalized in the U.S. with the flu this season, as of the week ending Jan. 20. It’s on track to be the worst in a decade. [The Washington Post]
$100,000
Steve Wynn, a gambling magnate who was the Republican National Committee finance chairman and a top GOP fundraiser, has stepped down from his RNC position. Allegations of Wynn’s sexual misconduct toward employees was described in a bombshell Wall Street Journal report that spoke to “150 current and former employees.” Wynn gave $100,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in this electoral cycle alone. [CNN]
200 million fake followers
The company Devumi sells social media followers to the vain or insufficiently popular, but the followers are not real people. Instead, they’re just weird robot zombies emulating people: the company draws on 3.5 million automated accounts that are sold multiple times, selling some 200 million fake followers. [The New York Times]
$18.4 billion
Worldwide sales of Humira, a rheumatoid arthritis medication, up 14 percent in 2017. Humira is just one pharmaceutical marketed by AbbVie, but it would be bigger than companies like General Mills and Xerox if it were its own company. [Axios]
Check out Besides the Points, my new sports newsletter.
If you see a significant digit in the wild, send it to @WaltHickey.