Joel Best is Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. Among his many books are Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads, More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues, and Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists, all from UC Press. In his latest book, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (UC Press, September 2008), he investigates ambiguous data. While in his piece below, he examines how media news uses large numbers like millions and billions in their stories.
‘Illions and ‘Illions
By Joel Best
“The billion is the new million.” That’s the opening sentence in my new book, Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (University of California Press, 2008). In writing that sentence, I was trying to make two points. First, a million used to be a big–and fairly unusual–number, but today’s news reports refer to billions–billions of people, billions of dollars, and so on. Second, there is a tendency to gloss over the differences between millions and billions, to mentally treat them as essentially equal–as a lot.
Recent economic news invites us to equate–as all being a lot–not just millions and billions, but trillions. Last year, the CEO of a major financial firm (that recently went belly up) took home an estimated $45 million. For everyone except Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, that annual income probably seems like a lot. A little over a week ago, the federal government invested $85 billion in AIG, the endangered insurance giant. Even Bill Gates probably considers that a lot. As I write, Congress is debating a proposal to spend close to $800 billion–some pessimists warn the real total could easily exceed a trillion dollars–to bail out Wall Street.
The mind boggles. These are all big, nearly incomprehensible numbers, and the temptation to just shrug and say, yup, $45 million and $85 billion and $1 trillion are all a lot of money. But, of course, it is important to remember just how different those figures are. It would take over 1,888 $45 million CEO salaries to cover the AIG investment, and more than 22,000 of those salaries to cover a $1 trillion bailout. (Remember, a trillion is a million millions.) Those numbers may all be a lot, but they sure aren’t equal.
Clearly, we’re living in an age when the news media present many–usually big, impressive–numbers. Understanding the news requires that we confront those figures, rather than just dismissing them as a lot. Now, more than ever, we need to think critically about the numbers in the news.
