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. How long is the commute to work in your county?
  2. How much does each country spend on health care per person?

Chart 1 of 2 · Commuting

How long is the commute to work in your county?

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

Search any of the 3,143 U.S. counties. In the Census Bureau's five-year survey ending in 2024, workers living in Glascock County, Georgia had the longest average one-way commute, 49.6 minutes, and those in Skagway Municipality, Alaska the shortest, 4.9. People who work from home are not counted, and small counties' estimates have wide margins of error.

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. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (Public domain (U.S. government work). This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.) · Data as of Dec 31, 2024

Open the chart and its numbers

Chart 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

  1. About how many times the world figure does the United States spend per person?
  2. Does spending more on health care per person always mean people live longer? What other chart on Chartly could help you check?
  3. Doctors and nurses are paid less in some countries. How would that change what these dollar figures can tell you?

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