Charts and Infographics

Charts and infographics illustrating key statistics.

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March 13, 2013 | 11:41 PM | By

A New Pope For A New Catholic World

Includes interactive map, infographics, and video
Photo by: Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk

Photo by: Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk

In our hyper-connected world, where success is often measured by the number of “followers” and “friends” we have, becoming pope is pretty much the holy grail.

I mean, think about it: you become pope, and just like that, you’ve got 1.2 billion followers. Take that Twitter!

That’s about how many Roman Catholics there are in the world today, according to Vatican figures. That’s more than 1 in 7 people on the planet who subscribe to the belief that the pope is one of the closest mortals to God. And it makes the papacy an incredibly powerful global force.

Among those ranks, a steadily growing majority live in the global south, more than 40 percent of whom hail from Latin America. Brazil has the largest Catholic population in the world, and three other Latin American countries are in the top 10, according to the the World Christian Database (as reported by the BBC). Roughly three-quarters of Latin America’s entire population — about 483 million — is now Catholic.

Click through the map below – produced by The Globe and Mail, using 2010 data from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life – to find the size of each country’s Catholic population as a percentage of its overall population.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Charts and Infographics, English Language Arts, Government, Maps, Video, Catholic, church, pope
March 7, 2013 | 1:10 PM | By

U.S. Gun Homicides: Visualizing the Numbers

Includes multimedia visualizations
Source: Factcheck.org

Source: Factcheck.org

Compared to other high-income nations in the world, America isn’t unusually violent; we’re just unusually lethal.

That’s according to David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. He argues there is a direct connection between the U.S. being leaps and bounds ahead of any other industrialized country in terms of overall gun death rates and gun homicides — and the fact that we have the highest gun-ownership rates in the world

“We are a nation which does not have more crime or more violence,” Hemenway said during a forum on gun violence held shortly after the Newtown shooting. “We are an average nation in terms of assault, robbery, and (non-firearms) homicides.” What distinguishes the U.S., he notes, is our rate of gun violence: “The United States has a very horrific gun problem … 85 people a day dying from guns from all sorts of injury … Compared to the other developed countries, we are just doing terribly.” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Charts and Infographics, Data Visualization, Government, Gun Control, Interactive Presentations, Maps, firearms, gun homicides, gun violence
March 1, 2013 | 4:30 PM | By

The Sequester Explained in Plain English

Includes video and charts

Well, it’s official:

The U.S. has entered the dreaded sequester, a very costly consequence of the federal government failing to reach a budget deal by their self-imposed deadline (March 1). This is one for the history books -  the largest, automatic across the board spending cuts in American history.

But if this latest government crisis hasn’t been keeping you up at night, you’re certainly not alone. A recent study found that the vast majority of Americans have paid little to no attention as the sequester drew near; many dismissed it as a poorly made sequel to last year’s more compelling fiscal cliff thriller (along the lines of the The Hangover Part II, if you will).

But despite the lack of popular interest, the sequester is actually a pretty big deal – and real pain will be felt. While it won’t lead to across the board tax hikes – as the fiscal cliff threatened to do – it will result in sweeping cuts to government services that millions of Americans rely on.

In the days leading up to the deadline, Obama referred to the sequester as “a meat cleaver approach” to reducing the deficit, making dire warnings about the damage it would inflict on the economy and individual states.

“Across the board spending cuts mean that hundreds of thousands of Americans won’t get services they rely on from the government,” he said.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Charts and Infographics, Economics, Government, Video, sequester, sequestration, spending cuts
March 1, 2013 | 4:13 PM | By

Making Sense of Debt, Deficits and Other Dull Mysteries of the Universe

There’s been a lot of news recently about the government’s ongoing battle over the deficit and the debt ceiling.

But what does it all really mean?

If you happened to be snoozing through most of your 12th grade economics class, here’s a quick refresher:

The deficit is the gap between what the government spends and what it actually makes in revenue (through taxes).

So, basically, to put it into first-grade math terms: (D)eficit  = (S)pending – (R)evenue 
Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Charts and Infographics, Data Visualization, Economics, Government, Interactive Presentations, Money, Video, debt, debt ceilingd asdfa, deficit
February 17, 2013 | 1:58 PM | By

Is It Time To Raise The Federal Minimum Wage?

Includes interactive maps, video, audio
Source: NPR

Source: NPR

 

Much of President Obama’s State of the Union address last Tuesday centered on the theme of boosting America’s dwindling middle class.

“It’s our generation’s task,” he implored, “to reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth — a rising, thriving middle class.”

Among the more tangible policies mentioned that evening to further that objective,  the president proposed raising the federal minimum wage – from $7.25 per hour to $9 by the end of 2015 –  and provide for annual cost of living adjustments. (This would apply to most hourly jobs, with some exceptions, including some tip-based work.)

“Let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty,” he said. “Working folks shouldn’t have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up, while CEO pay has never been higher. So here’s an idea that Gov. Romney and I actually agreed on last year: Let’s tie the minimum wage to the cost of living, so that it finally becomes a wage you can live on.” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: American History, Charts and Infographics, Data Visualization, Government, Maps, Money, income inequality, minimum wage
February 12, 2013 | 1:27 PM | By

What Policies Do Americans Care Most About?

Includes interactive chart
Pew_publicpriorities

Source: Pew Research (click to explore the interactive)

President Barack Obama tonight delivers the first State of the Union address of his second term. The speech is expected to include an ambitious list of policy goals and priorities – from boosting the economy and reforming the nation’s immigration system to advocating for new policies on gun control and climate change.

The speech is widely considered to be among the most significant of Obama’s remaining political career. That’s because second term presidents generally only have a limited window of time – as little as year – to accomplish their big-ticket goals before the lame duck syndrome sets in. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Charts and Infographics, Government
January 25, 2013 | 7:25 PM | By

What Do Your Taxes Actually Pay For?

Includes interactives

GrandAwardScreenshot1

When Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that “in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” he neglected to mention a third absolute: our government’s eternal failure to agree on how high those taxes should be and what they should pay for.

As long as our nation continues to spend a lot more than it takes in, the issue will continue to be a saga between conservatives and liberals, the former fighting for lower taxes, fewer public services, and smaller government; the latter pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy, more government revenue, and a preservation of the social safety net. It’s like a really boring, annoying version of the NeverEnding Story (without the cool flying animals). Just think about the last few months in Washington: we narrowly averted hurling ourselves over the fiscal cliff only to re-enter into a battle over the debt ceiling. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: American History, Charts and Infographics, Data Visualization, Government, Money, government spending, income, income calculator, tax calculator, taxes
December 14, 2012 | 7:34 PM | By

The United States of Firearms: America’s Love of the Gun

Includes data visualizations and video

Regardless of where you stand on gun control, the fact remains that America is one gun-toting country. There are 89 guns for every 100 civilians, according to the 2011 Small Arms Survey. That amounts to roughly 270 million guns owned nationwide, far and away the highest gun ownership rate in the world. With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. is home to anywhere between 35 and 50 percent of all civilian-owned guns on earth.

Created by Simon Rogers at the Guardian (click to explore interactively)

 

And while America certainly does not have the highest firearms-related homicide rate in the world (it ranks 28th), our rate is more than four times that of any other industrialized country (including all of Europe, Japan, Australia, Turkey and India): in 2011,  there were well over 9,000 gun-related homicides (nearly 70 percent of all homicides committed), or roughly three per 100,000 population, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. That’s about 20 times the average rate of all other developed nations, according to the Washington Post.

Max Fisher_The Washington Post (source: UNODC; using 2010 data)

In contrast, Great Britain has a gun ownership rate of about 6 guns for every 100 civilians. Last year it had 41 gun-related homicides, or .07 per 100,000 population. Meanwhile, Finland, where there are 45 guns per 100 civilians, had only 24 gun homicides in 2011, a rate of .45 per 100,000 population.

 

Simon Rogers_The Guardian

The infographic below, produced by Good Magazine and Column Five, further illustrates America’s deep and exceptional love affair with the gun.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. rate of gun ownership was previously stated incorrectly: there are 89 guns for every 100 civilians (NOT: 89 out of 100 civilians own a gun).

FILED UNDER: Charts and Infographics, Data Visualization, Government, Gun Control, Maps, firearms, gun control, homicide, maps
November 30, 2012 | 1:04 PM | By

Same-Sex Marriage Laws by State

Includes interactive map

The data visualization wizards at the Los Angeles Times put together a great chronological map that illustrates the change in same-sex marriage rights by state since 2000. Click the image below to see the interactive version.

Gay-Marriage_timeline_LA Times

Background

In 1996 the U.S. Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), stating that “the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.’’.

Under the federal law, states do not have any obligation to recognize same-sex marriages and the legal/financial rights that go along with it. However, individual states have the power to decide – either through legislation or voter initiative – to legalize same-sex marriages. And in recent years, a growing number of states have done just that. They include Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut,  Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire, as well as Washington D.C. In the 2012 election, voters in the state of Washington, Maryland and Maine also legalized marriage for same-sex couples, raising the total number of states to nine.

In California, same-sex marriage was briefly allowed until voters in 2008 passed Proposition 8, which struck down the law.  A federal court has since ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional. Same-sex marriages, however,  have yet to resume here, and the U.S. Supreme Court is now considering whether to hear the case.

FILED UNDER: American History, Charts and Infographics, Government, Interactive Presentations, Law & Power, Maps, adoption, chart, DOMA, gay marriage, map, same-sex marriage