You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
8 percent
That’s the 1-year revenue growth among retailers categorized as premiere, according to a Deloitte study. Retailers they categorized as price-based saw revenue growth up 7 percent. So where’s that retail apocalypse? There’s no middle class anymore in retail, with revenues down 2 percent in the class that is neither budget nor premiere. [Bloomberg Gadfly]
12 percent
That’s the percentage of the U.S. toy market accounted for by the now bankrupt Toys-R-Us. With that store in full retreat for the first time ever, the company behind the currently-defunct KB Toys sees an opportunity. Yes, that’s right, the place where I did a particularly hellish holiday temp worker tour in high school is actually seeing a business opportunity which, if true, good for them. The firm that owns the IP for KB plans 1,000 or more pop-up stores for this coming holiday season, presumably swimming in the commercial real estate wake of those Spirit Halloween stores. [Bloomberg]
17 percent
Percentage of people born between 1981 and 1996 who are registered Republicans, down from 27 percent in the same group of people 10 years earlier. Gen X is also leaving the GOP, as of those born between 1965 and 1980, 34 percent of those voters were registered Republican in 1994 compared to just 25 percent today. [Pew Research Center]
$40,000 for each violation
The Federal Trade Commission has opened an inquiry into whether Facebook violated a legal agreement it had with the government on user privacy when electioneering firm Cambridge Analytica obtained the data of 50 million users. If it finds Facebook broke that accord, they could fine the company $40,000 per violation. [The Washington Post]
5 million euros
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is being held in custody at the Nanterre police station in relation to an investigation into an alleged 5 million euro cash transfer to Sarkozy and chief of staff Claude Gueant from businessman Ziad Takieddine in 2007. The investigation is looking into claims that the regime of Moammar Gadhafi gave 50 million euros to the campaign. [USA Today]
$50 billion
Estimated size of the legal marijuana business by 2026, up from $6 billion last year. Cashing in on the legal marijuana market is former NFL player and Heisman trophy winner Ricky Williams, who to some notoriety left the league after failing a drug test and testing positive for marijuana, then returning a year later, then failing another drug test, then getting suspended, then retiring a few years later. Marijuana, the cause of and solution to Ricky Williams’s problems. [Bloomberg]
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