Verb when citing statistics ex. "one in nine Americans (work or works) in sales"

Question

When I read the following sentence:

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales.

I believe work sounds better than works.

Experts and wordsmiths, please advise!

Possible duplicate of '1 out of 100 chickens is' or '1 out of 100 chickens are'? — Sven Yargs, Jul 30 '15 at 07:39
And how about 1.75 in 10 Americans? You'll notice the denominator changes to avoid fractions and plurals, thus making the singular a clear choice. Rather than saying 2 in 10 one would typically say 1 in 5. But there are no "rules" here that are not routinely broken. — TimR, Jul 30 '15 at 12:44

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 30 '15 at 07:21

1

This is an old argument. A case can be made for either.

One (in nine Americans) works in sales.

One works in sales.

1/9(320,000,000 ) Americans work in sales.

Thirty-five and a half thousand Americans work in sales.

You choose!

answered Jul 30 '15 at 07:21

1 Answers1