Data visualizations
Spectacular new ways to slice and dice unemployment data since 2007
Create over 250 demographic composites, combining race and ethnicity, gender, age, and education.
Individual minimum wage versus family poverty threshold
Working at minimum wage earns you less in real terms than in 1968; you're further from supporting your family, too.
Private consultants rake in public pension fund fees
At many public pension funds, the fees paid to outside investment consultants are equal to a sizable part of the money spent on employees' salaries. (The thumbnail, for example, represents CALPERS for 2011.)
Bank profits: not so shabby after all
There has been a lot of reporting in recent weeks about how big banks have fallen on hard times. One would be forgiven for getting the impression that these banks are not doing much better than barely scraping by. But the data tell another story. In 2011, for example, the profits of Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo each exceeded the profits of Google. The average profit from 2005 to 2011 for Apple was less than that for Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.
