Maps

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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
January 22, 2013 | 4:39 PM | By

A Map of Everyone in America (and Canada)

Includes interactive map
Brandon Martin-Anderson Public Domain

Brandon Martin-Anderson Public Domain

Even if dorking out on maps isn’t your idea of a good time, this one’s definitely worth a look.

It’s a dot map of every person counted by the 2010 US and 2011 Canadian censuses. 341,817,095 unique individuals, to be exact. And each person – every last man, woman, and child – is represented by a single point (click “show labels” at right to see location names as well).

It’s like pointillism on steroids (take that, Georges Seurat!).

The map is the handiwork of software engineer Brandon Martin-Anderson, who says he sought to produce “an image of human settlement patterns unmediated by proxies like city boundaries, arterial roads and state lines.”

Zoom into the areas that look like big smudges and you’ll see that they’re actually heavily concentrated dots denoting large population centers.

So what does this map tell us? Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Law & Power, Maps, census, dot map, population
December 19, 2012 | 6:07 PM | By

The Geography of U.S. Gun Homicides

Includes interactive map

Explore the map below for detailed figures on each state’s firearms-related homicide rates for 2010 and 2011. For every state except Alabama and Florida (which post their own records), data are taken from FBI records. The darker the shade of blue, the greater the number of gun homicides in a state for every 100,000 residents living there.

In 2011, the highest gun homicide rate (per 100,000 residents) in the nation was, ironically, in the city where the nation’s gun control laws are decided: Washington, D.C. The rate there was 12.4 (actually down from 2010). A close second was Louisiana, with a rate of 10, followed by Mississippi, with 7.4. California, the most populous state, has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country as well as the greatest number of overall homicides (1,790) and the most gun-related murders (1,220). In 2011, the state had a gun homicide rate of 3.25 (per 100,000 residents).

Sources:

National: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-20

Alabama: http://www.acjic.alabama.gov/

Florida: http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/getdoc/332e1b3d-2648-4b06-8be5-d322f340c95d/1971_fwd_murder_firearms.aspx

FILED UNDER: Data Visualization, Gun Control, Maps, gun control, guns, homicide, U.S.
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 | 6:55 PM | By

The 12 Nations of Same-Sex Marriage

Same-sex marriage has been legalized in a growing number of states around the country. But under federal law, marriage is still defined as a union between a man and a women. If the U.S. ever does legalize same-sex marriage nationally, it won’t be the first country in the world to do so. Not even close. In fact, there are currently 10 nations around the world where same-sex marriage is universally legal. Explore this map to see where and since when.

FILED UNDER: English Language Arts, Government, Maps, gay marriage, international, same-sex marriage
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
November 9, 2012 | 7:11 PM | By

Which Propositions Passed (and which counties voted for them)?

Includes interactive map

Let’s be honest: voting in California can be kind of overwhelming.

Along with having to decide on a president, a senator, state and local officials, and local ballot measures, California voters were also faced with no less than eleven statewide propositions this election. Of these, five passed.

The map below shows which counties supported what (counties in green voted Yes, those in red voted No). The voting patterns emphasize the fairly sharp political divide between more liberal counties in and around the Bay Area, Los Angeles and along the coast, and the far more conservative counties of the Central Valley.

FILED UNDER: Data Visualization, Government, Maps, counties, election, propositions, results, vote count
November 3, 2012 | 9:03 AM | By

Should Felons Have the Right to Vote?

Includes video

In California, felons serving time in prison or county jail are denied their right to vote. So too are ex-felons who have served their prison terms but are still on parole.That amounts to a fairly significant population – many thousands of California residents – who have temporarily lost their right to vote as a result of criminal convictions.

(Most inmates in county jail awaiting trial or serving time for a misdemeanor, or who are on probation, can still vote, according to the California Secretary of State’s voting guide for current and former inmates).

And this raises an important question: is voting a privilege that should be denied to people who commit crimes, or is it an inalienable right? Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Charts and Infographics, Law & Power, Maps, Video, felons, map, PBS, video, voter disenfranchisement, voting rights
November 2, 2012 | 12:31 PM | By

Who Votes? 20 Years of State-by-State Voter Participation Rates, Visualized

Includes interactive maps and charts

This interactive graphic, produced by the Pew Center on the States sheds light on how voters in each state, and the nation overall, have participated in elections, from 1990 through 2010. Check out voting trends over time across three separate measures of the election process: the number of registered voters, the number of ballots cast, and the number of votes counted. Visit Pew’s site for the full-size version.

FILED UNDER: American History, Charts and Infographics, Data Visualization, English Language Arts, Government, Maps, chart, maps, voter participation, voter trends, voters
October 1, 2012 | 7:31 PM | By

The Battleground States: Where It All Goes Down

Includes maps and videos

Watch Map Center: What If the Battleground States Go Red? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Because nearly every state in the nation has a winner-take-all presidential electoral system (except Nebraska and Maine), the outcome on election day in most states is fairly predictable. No Republican presidential candidate, for instance, has won California since 1988, and there’s no sign of that trend changing anytime soon. So it wouldn’t be the smartest move to put your money on Mitt Romney here.

Likewise, Texas hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976. So Barack Obama’s chances of winning over the Longhorn State this election? Pretty slim.

Of course, on the rare occasion there have been some monumental upsets. Take Indiana, which hadn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, but in 2008 picked Obama (albeit narrowly and ephemerally: the state is back to it’s solid red roots this year).

The majority of the presidential race is downright predictable.

So where’s the suspense? Where’s the action? Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Data Visualization, Government, Interactive Presentations, Law & Power, Maps, Video, battleground states, electoral college, maps, Multimedia presentations, swing states, video