Hard Numbers

25: More than 25 percent of emerging and developing market economies are expected to grow at a slower pace in per capita terms than their rich-world counterparts over the next five years, leaving them only further behind in terms of living standards. #GrowingDivide

40: Nearly 40 percent of US factory jobs have disappeared since 1979. #HollowMiddleClass

10.6: Germany’s foreign-born population reached a record 10.6 million in 2017, an increase of 5.8 percent from 2016. Refugee arrivals have leveled off, but immigration from eastern EU countries is climbing at an above-average rate. #ChangingIdentities

40 vs 60: There are now more physical barriers at European borders than at any time during the Cold War, and it’s not just a European trend. According to a 2016 report in The Economist, since the fall of the Berlin Wall more than forty countries around the world have built fences against more than sixty of their neighbors. #Walls

47 and 77: In November 2016, the United Nations warned that while automation and innovations in machine learning threaten 47 percent of all existing jobs in the United States, the number is 65 percent in Nigeria, with a population of 140 million people, 69 percent in India, home to more than 1.3 billion, and 77 percent in China, a country of 1.4 billion. #HereComeTheRobots