2025 by the numbers: TikTok, Marty McFly and Medicare spending

Here’s a roundup of statistics for Anno Domini 2025, many with Iowa connections, with some spillover into the surrounding years.

7: States where every county still has at least one newspaper, according to the Medill Local News Initiative’s “The State of Local News 2025” — Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Wyoming … and Iowa

22: Counties in Iowa that only have one newspaper, according to the same report

174: Margin by which the Des Moines Register has the edge over the Cedar Rapids Gazette as Iowa’s largest multi-day print newspaper, based on fall USPS circulation statements (total paid distribution). The Register has about an 8,500-subscriber edge on Sundays, which it calculates separately, and 2,500-subscriber edge on weekday print+online.

0: Newspapers with circulation in Iowa printing seven days a week at the end of 2025, after the Gazette cut to three in February and Quad-City Times and Omaha World-Herald dropped Mondays in November

$4.88: Price of a roll of 80/20 ground beef at a Linn County Hy-Vee in January

$6.83: Price of a roll of 80/20 ground beef at a Linn County Hy-Vee in December

8: Minimum months TikTok operated illegally in the United States, until a deal begun Sept. 22 and announced Dec. 19 met qualifications for divestiture (executive orders do not supersede a law shutting it down)

32: Iowa’s rank in state population as of 2024 after being passed by Nevada, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates

10: Iowa’s rank in state population in both the 1890 and 1900 censuses

12: States California could break itself into with each one still being larger than Iowa

29,801: Aggregate estimated population growth for Altoona, Ankeny, Bondurant, Waukee, and West Des Moines between 2020 and 2024

22,273: Estimated net population growth for the other 935 incorporated communities in Iowa combined, including 256 that lost people

$24.838 billion: NASA’s entire budget in fiscal year 2025, from earth science experiments to the Artemis program; a 25% cut has been proposed for FY26

8.1: Days it took for Medicare to go through that amount in calendar year 2024, based on a total of $1.1221 trillion in expenditures listed in the 2025 Medicare Trustees Report

$1.1 billion: Amount the Corporation for Public Broadcasting lost over two fiscal years (2026-27) through Congress’ rescissions package approved in July, a death blow that caused the CPB to announce an end to its operations

8.6: Hours it took for Medicare to go through that amount in 2024

$56 million: Cost per year to make pennies, a 232-year part of this country ended by presidential fiat

26¼: Minutes it took for Medicare to go through that amount in 2024

$800,000: Budget shortfall the State Historical Society of Iowa said was a factor in the shutdown of the Centennial Building in Iowa City

$884,338: Amount the state of Iowa spent on education savings accounts for students in the Independence school district in the 2024-25 school year

60%: Amount of the state history collection at the Centennial Building in Iowa City that is at risk of being distributed, privatized, or destroyed when the rest goes to Des Moines

148: Years the state of Iowa published The Annals of Iowa (1863-74, 1882-84, and 1893-2026; it will stop in June)

137: Years National Geographic has been in publication (1888-present)

$1,950,613: Amount state Rep. Steve Holt, R-Denison, said the state of Iowa spent on gender transition care between 2015 and 2022

$1,957,440: Amount the state of Iowa spent on education savings accounts for students in the Denison school district over two years (2023-25)

880: Employees of the National Weather Service who lost their jobs by the end of February, according to CBS News

450: Number of meteorologists, hydrologists, and radar technicians the National Weather Service was given permission to hire/rehire in August

45.8%: Span of Iowa’s statehood, as of the end of 2025, that the Black Hawk Bridge was an active part of Iowa transportation history (82 nonconsecutive years, 1931-45 and 1957-2025)

40½: Years between Iowa’s issuance of standard license plates with Q as the first letter of three. The Q’s were included in the initial wave of the 1985-86 series and went to Polk County. Q wasn’t used as a first letter in the 1997 series, and the 2012 reset reached the 17th letter in the alphabet this past August.

1 and 12: Rank out of 13 components of a “personal definition of success” that Generation Z men who voted for Trump and Generation Z women who voted for Harris, respectively, listed “having children” (NBC News Decision Desk, early September)

49%: Americans who say religion is an important part of their daily lives, the first drop below majority and a 17-point plunge in a decade (Gallup, November)

43%: U.S. adults age 18-29 who say they regularly get their news from TikTok (Pew Research, August)

36%: Democrats who are “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American (Gallup, June)

33%: Voters who believe the country is capable of solving its political problems (New York Times/Siena, late September)

30%: Adults who agree or strongly agree that Americans may have to resort to violence to get the country back on course (PBS/Marist, late September)

8%: Republicans who have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in mass media (Gallup, September)

$28 million: Amount Texas Tech boosters reportedly spent on name, image, and likeness money for its 2025 football roster; the Red Raiders won their first Big 12 football title in the history of the conference and then lost their playoff game

113 and counting: Football seasons Iowa State has not won a conference championship

226: Games between the second time Iowa State football wore true yellow pants under Matt Campbell (Nov. 29, 2016) and the third time (Nov. 8, 2025)

18: Games Iowa State wore all-black (or gray) in that same time span

0: [bleep]s Matt Campbell gives gave that black is not an Iowa State color

1981-2012: Time span covered if Forrest Gump (1994) had been released in 2024

1994-2025: Time span covered if Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) had been released in 2025

1995: The year Marty McFly would have visited if Back to the Future (1985) had been released in 2025

19.69 million: TV audience for the 97th annual Academy Awards in 2025, its largest in five years; the ceremony will move off broadcast TV to YouTube in 2029

18.3 million: TV audience for the Big Ten football championship game

4 of 11: Games in the College Football Playoff that were regular-season rematches (Ole Miss-Tulane, Alabama-Oklahoma, Ole Miss-Georgia, Indiana-Oregon)

3 of 4: Teams in the CFP semifinals that didn’t even play in their conference championship games

80: Age the first baby boomer turned on Jan. 1, 2026 (11 PM Dec. 31 Iowa time); three of the last five men to have held the presidency will also turn 80 in 2026

70: Age the last baby boomer will turn at the end of 2034, the year Social Security is currently expected to become insolvent

Jeff Morrison grew up in rural Traer and lives in Cedar Rapids. He was a copy editor at Iowa’s two largest newspapers. His other website is Iowa Highway Ends. He has visited every incorporated town in the state of Iowa.