Archive for March, 2006

A Critic of InfoGraphics in the Washington Post

Published by Catherine on March 22, 2006 in Critiques and Commentary. 0 Comments

Jon Udell’s blog post about visual explanations in the Washington Post. After pointing out some problems with two graphs that he found that paper he goes on to say:

First, that we all need all need more and better tools to help us create and analyze these visual explanations. Second, that the natural home for such tools is online. We should expect to find much more there than static PDFs of the printed infographics. The data, as well as the interactive tools used to analyze the data, can and should be online. It should be straightforward to verify facts and explore alternate interpretations.

Although I would agree with this sentiment, the current size and resolution of monitors limits their ability to display data visualizations effectively. However, the New York Times is making some effort to include Flash-based interactive graphics in their online edition: The State of Executive Pay in 2005

Popularity: 2% [?]

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Income share going to the richest 5% (1917-2002)

Published by Catherine on March 20, 2006 in Income - High, Income - Share of, Line Graph, Pitketty & Saez and United States. 0 Comments

Here, I am taking a closer look at the bottom and top halves of the Top 10%. Look at the dramatic change in income share going to the top 5% (purple line), from 35% to 20% to 32%. Again it is the most wealthy who have the extreme changes in income. (See previous graphs that I posted about the drop in income after 2000)

Top 10% Income in the United States

Also the share of income going to the top 5% in 2000 was closing in on the previous high in 1928. Then they lost ground with the stock market decline.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Income share going to the richest 10% (1917-2002)

Published by Catherine on March 19, 2006 in Income - High, Income - Share of, Line Graph, Pitketty & Saez and United States. 0 Comments

This income data is from an academic paper “Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998” by Saez and Piketty. It is the longest history that I have found so far and it focuses on high-income “tax units”, i.e. IRS income data of the wealthy.

The U-shape of this graph was a little startling as was the dramatic drop in income during World War II.
top10_1917_2002

Popularity: 3% [?]

Visualizing credit card debt

Published by Catherine on March 16, 2006 in Debt. 0 Comments

John Maeda’s Credit Card Debt Calculator, by entering your credit card debt you create a table showing the time/# of payments it takes to pay it off.

Maeda_CreditCardDebt

Popularity: 3% [?]

Housing prices and perception of wealth

Published by Catherine on March 15, 2006 in Cost of Living, Critiques and Commentary and Housing Prices. 0 Comments

Looking at the effect the increase in housing prices on people’s perception of wealth.

So again, has the housing bubble created a wealth illusion? It does seem that many Americans feel wealthier because of the large increases in home equity in recent years. However, it is difficult to gauge how people feel about their wealth. The most obvious way to demonstrate that we feel wealthier because of increases in home equity is by measuring how much equity many Americans have pulled out of their homes in recent years. As we have seen in this paper, the numbers are enormous. Most people will not use their homes as a piggybank unless they are feeling pretty good about your wealth (or if they are very desperate – it doesn’t appear that many people fall into this category). Based on this, it is safe to say that most of us are feeling wealthier these days because of the soaring prices of our homes.

Popularity: 2% [?]