Chart assignment
Charts to read and discuss
Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.
Chart 1 of 2 · Banks
How many U.S. banks have failed each year?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
Bank failures peaked at 530 in 1989, during the savings-and-loan crisis, when about 2,400 banks and thrifts failed from 1980 to 1995. The financial crisis brought 140 failures in 2009 and 157 in 2010, and only five banks failed in 2023, though three of them were among the biggest ever; 2 failed in 2025. Nine banks failed in 1934, the FDIC's first year, and none failed in 2005, 2006, 2018, 2021 or 2022. The count includes savings and loans closed by the FSLIC and the Resolution Trust Corporation, but not banks kept open with government help.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: FDIC BankFind Suite, bank failures and assistance data (Public domain (U.S. government work; FDIC)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025
Open the chart and its numbersChart 2 of 2 · World
How much does each country spend on health care per person?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
In 2023, the United States spent $13,473 per person on health care, about 10 times the world figure of $1,317. Germany spent $6,395, Japan $3,638, China $763 and India $85; Madagascar spent the least, $17. Search 191 countries and territories. Spending counts what governments, insurers and households paid for health care, but not new hospitals or equipment, in US dollars at each year's exchange rates, not adjusted for differences in prices.
How to read this chart
Each bar is what a country spent on health care in a year, by governments, insurers and households together, divided by its population and turned into U.S. dollars. The dashed line is the world. The figures aren't adjusted for prices, so a dollar buys more care in some countries than others.
Questions to discuss
- About how many times the world figure does the United States spend per person?
- Does spending more on health care per person always mean people live longer? What other chart on Chartly could help you check?
- Doctors and nurses are paid less in some countries. How would that change what these dollar figures can tell you?
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators: Current health expenditure per capita (current US$) (CC BY 4.0 (credit the World Bank)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2023
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