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.

  1. Which U.S.-listed companies bring in the most revenue?
  2. What is the unemployment rate in each country?

Chart 1 of 2 · Companies

Which U.S.-listed companies bring in the most revenue?

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.

Amazon brought in $717 billion and Walmart $713 billion in their latest fiscal years, followed by UnitedHealth Group ($448 billion) in third. Each company's figure is its total revenue for its latest full fiscal year in the SEC's yearly figures, as reported in its annual report to the SEC; each company's “Filing” link in the table opens it. It covers the 50 largest U.S.-listed companies that report under U.S. accounting rules; foreign companies reporting under international rules, such as Toyota, aren't included, and figures a company tagged wrongly (revenue more than 20 times its assets) are left out.

Questions to discuss

  1. In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
  2. Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
  3. Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?

Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR company financial data (XBRL) (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of May 31, 2026

Open the chart and its numbers

Chart 2 of 2 · World

What is the unemployment rate in each country?

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.

In 2025, 4.2% of workers in the United States were unemployed, against 4.8% worldwide; the highest rate was 34.2% in Eswatini, and the lowest 0.1%, in Qatar. Search 182 countries and territories. These are the International Labour Organization's estimates, which count people without work who are looking for it and fill gaps where a country runs no regular survey, so they can differ from a country's own figures.

How to read this chart

Each bar is the share of a country's workers who have no job and are looking for one, estimated by the International Labour Organization. The dashed line is the world. People who aren't looking for work, such as students and retirees, aren't counted as unemployed at all.

Questions to discuss

  1. Is the United States above or below the world rate, and by about how many percentage points?
  2. A country can have low unemployment while many people earn very little. How is that possible?
  3. Why would someone who has given up looking for work not count as unemployed? Does that make the number more or less useful?

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators: Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate) (CC BY 4.0 (credit the World Bank)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025

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