Chart Porn » US Economy

50 Years of Government Spending

Dustin — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:35:50 +0000

I usually don’t like viewing stacked bars over time – it’s too hard to see what’s changing. This one still isn’t perfect, but the deficiencies are moderated somewhat by clear labels and only having the three columns. Content wise, it’s pretty fascinating too.

Why Gas Prices Vary Across the USA

Dustin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:08:42 +0000

James Hamilton takes a crack at explaining why gasoline prices vary so much across the country. I think he’s right that taxes, regulations, and transportation explain most of it, but I suspect that refinery shenanigans also play a role. Brad Plumer over at WashPost has additional insights.

(the original version of this map over at Gasbuddy is fun to zoom around in)

Update: Economic Indicators Dashboard

Dustin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:45:01 +0000

One of my favorite economic dashboards. It highlights major macro indicators, what direction they are trending, what the typical ranges are, and lets you drill down to explanations of why you should care about these numbers.

Ryan’s New Budget

Dustin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:35:00 +0000

There’s are a lot of nonsense charts and projections in Paul Ryan’s new House Republican budget, but rather than get into political arguments, I’ll just post the ones I thought were actually insightful:

High Costs of US Medical Procedures

Dustin — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:09:00 +0000

A recent study compared the cost of procedures across different countries. It’s interesting to me that some people think our “free market” medical system is the best, without realizing that health care services here in no way resemble a market. The related article runs through a number of ways our system is dysfunctional.

Memo To Political Bloggers: Please Stop Writing About Economics; You Really Suck At It

Dustin — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:04:18 +0000

A wonderful post over at The Big Picture that takes both liberals and conservatives to the wood shed over their abuse of economic indicators and charts that show correlation but not causation.

Note: The comments over there are worth a read as well.

Update: Economic Indicators Dashboard

Dustin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:01:00 +0000

Updated for January: one of my favorite economic dashboards. It highlights major macro indicators, what direction they are trending, what the typical ranges are, and lets you drill down to explanations of why you should care. In other words, it’s a very sleek example of how to graph snapshot data while still providing valuable context.

What Jobs are the 1% Doing?

Dustin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:57:39 +0000

A treemap of the jobs that the 1% are doing – showing a lot of variety. I wish there was more detail about the dataset source. The related article provides some anecdotal examples.

What Percent Are You?

Dustin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:44:28 +0000

Enter your household income and see where you rank in 344 areas around the country:

There’s some interesting behind the scenes information on the news paper version here:

(via FlowingData)

Retail Sales

Dustin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:33:22 +0000

Here’s an example of how more isn’t always better. Compare the interactive presentation of retail sales data below to the static version – both from the Wall Street Journal. In my opinion the static version presents the information in a much clearer and usable format. The only thing it’s missing is a chart for “total retail sales”. Regarding the interactive version, I’ve never liked stacked bar charts over time unless they illustrate very clear trends – with this many similar segments I think they are pretty silly (though the ability to drill down does alleviate this a smidgeon). (related article)

Interest Rates (1831-2011)

Dustin — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:57:00 +0000

An interesting long term perspective.

Education Pays

Dustin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:52:23 +0000

A clear message from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Thanks to E. Kanal for passing it on!

Economic Indicators Dashboard

Dustin — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 01:06:00 +0000

Updated for November: one of my favorite economic dashboards. It highlights major macro indicators, what direction they are trending, and what the typical ranges are. It also lets you drill down to explanations of why you should care, and historical values.

Money – All of it

Dustin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:16:00 +0000

XKCD pulls together a number of interesting statistics and presents them all as square blocks, varying the magnitude in each section. I’m not sure how much value this has as a graphic – the comparative value of the different groups isn’t very high in most cases. However, the statistics themselves are really interesting and worth browsing.

(note: the graphic’s viewer took a while to load – probably because of server load, which should quiet down later)

US Economy: A Lost Decade?

Dustin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:33:51 +0000

A visually interesting video from the BBC. It does a good job of presenting basic facts, with a little annotation. The difficulty with these videographics, I find, is striking the right balance between being simple enough to understand easily, but complicated enough that they actually make a point. In the BBC’s favor, they appear to be using this as an introduction to issues, and link it back to their broader coverage of the global economy and crisis, including their video series “Make it Clear”, which answers basic questions like “How Can Countries Go Bust?” and “What is the IMF?”.