Chart Porn » US Economy

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?”.

Unemployment (1948-2011)

Dustin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:10:22 +0000

I haven’t posted this version in a while, but the WSJ does keep it up to date with the latest data. I think it’s a lovely use of a heatmap.

Death and Taxes 2012

Dustin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:02:07 +0000

Jess Bachman has updated his beautiful visualization of the United States budget. He’s been doing this for several years, so the design is very solid and accurate.

Occupy George

Dustin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:41:00 +0000

Hacking money with graphics to draw attention to economic inequalities. I love that they included accurate titles and legends. (via Ritholtz)

10 Essential Fiscal Charts

Dustin — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:10:16 +0000

10 beautiful charts from the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Fiscal Analysis Initiative, examining the United States Debt and the challenges facing Congress’ Super Committee.

What Wall Street Protesters are Angry About – in Charts

Dustin — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:23:21 +0000

A series of 30+ charts on unemployment, wages, corporate profits, income inequality, debt, taxes, and bailouts from the Business Insider. It’s actually quite an accurate compendium, and the narrative annotation spices up what are otherwise pretty dry charts from the St. Louis Fed (note: if you’ve never used the FRED data/graphing system, you should really go play with it – they even have an APP now). I particularly like the sequence where they illustrate that banks are borrowing money from the FED at basically zero interest rates, and using it to buy treasuries. Hilarious.

US State Budget Gaps

Dustin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:31:47 +0000

What is shocking to me is that there are 12 states with no shortfall.

Note: Some Financial Times features require a subscription.