There are 342 million people in the US.
Each dot is 100,000 people.
There are 989 billionaires in the US.
3.5%
Researchers who studied mass movements from 1945 to 2014 found a pattern. Once 3.5% of a country's people stood together, the people in charge almost always gave way.
Would you stop working and buying for one week, if about 12 million other people in the US did too?
There are none of us yet.
Why 3.5%?
Political scientist Erica Chenoweth found that national campaigns to remove a government or win independence, from 1945 to 2014, almost always succeeded once their largest single protest involved 3.5% of the country's population. In the US that's about 12 million people. She calls it a rule of thumb with exceptions, and says no one knows whether it holds when people aim for it on purpose. This is how we find out.
How the week works
When the count reaches about 290 million, the week starts on the first Monday at least eight weeks later. That's time to save, stock up and arrange care. Caring for people, medicine, emergencies and food for the day don't count as working or buying. Before it starts, everyone who comes back here is asked if they're still in. After it, everyone is asked whether they did it. All three numbers get published.
What we keep
For each yes: a random ID, the time, and the country the connection came from. No name, no email, no IP address. If the database leaked tomorrow it would show a lot of yeses and nobody's name.
What the count can't prove
Someone with a lot of phones can say yes more than once. Every yes passes a bot check and a rate limit, which makes that slow and expensive without making it impossible. That's why everyone is asked again before the week starts.
Before you say yes
Saying yes is speech. Stopping work for a political reason generally isn't legally protected, including in the US and the UK. Know where you stand before the week comes.