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 do countries compare on wealth, health and the internet?
  2. How many babies were given your name each year since 1880?
  3. How fast are US prices rising?
  4. How long do Americans live, and how has that changed since 1900?

Chart 1 of 4 · World

How do countries compare on wealth, health and the internet?

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

Pick countries and compare them on GDP per person, population, life expectancy, internet use, access to electricity, unemployment, inflation, carbon emissions per person, health spending per person or college enrollment. It opens with GDP per person in 2024: $86,170 in the United States, $56,104 in Germany, $13,293 in China, $2,592 in India and $1,084 in Nigeria. Each measure uses the newest year most countries have reported; GDP is in US dollars at that year's exchange rates, not adjusted for prices.

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: World Bank, World Development Indicators: GDP per capita (current US$) (CC BY 4.0 (credit the World Bank)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2024

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Chart 2 of 4 · Baby names

How many babies were given your name each year since 1880?

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

Type any name to see how many U.S. babies were given it each year since 1880, for girls or boys. Emma, shown first, went from 2,003 girls in 1880 down to 414 in 1976, then back up to a peak of 22,719 in 2003; in 2025 it was 12,754. The counts come from Social Security card applications, so the early years undercount everyone. A year with fewer than 5 babies of a name shows as 0, because Social Security leaves those names out for privacy.

How to read this chart

Each point is the number of U.S. babies given a name in one year, from Social Security card applications. Type any name to see its line, for girls or boys. These are counts, not shares, and far more babies are born today than in 1880, so a count can grow just because the country did.

Questions to discuss

  1. Look up your own name or a friend's. When was it most popular, and what might explain that?
  2. Why are counts from the 1880s lower than counts today, even for names that were very popular then?
  3. How could you change these counts to fairly compare a name's popularity in 1900 with today?

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration, Baby Names from Social Security Card Applications (national data) (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025

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Chart 3 of 4 · Inflation

How fast are US prices rising?

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The inflation rate was 3.7% in September 2026: how much consumer prices changed from the same month a year earlier. Each point makes that comparison, back to 1914, the first year BLS can compare. Inflation peaked at 23.7% in June 1920 and at 14.8% in March 1980; the 9.1% of June 2022 was the highest since 1981. Prices fell as fast as 15.8% a year in 1921 and 10.7% in 1932. BLS collected no prices in October 2025, during a lapse in federal funding, so that month and October 2026 are missing.

How to read this chart

Each point compares consumer prices in a month with the same month a year earlier. A value of 3 means things cost about 3% more than a year before; below zero means prices fell. The chart shows how fast prices change, not how high they are.

Questions to discuss

  1. Find two times when inflation was highest. What was happening in the country then?
  2. If inflation falls from 8% to 3%, are prices going down, or just rising more slowly?
  3. Find a stretch when the line is below zero. Why might falling prices be bad news for workers and businesses?

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index (CPI-U, all items) (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Sep 30, 2026

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Chart 4 of 4 · Health

How long do Americans live, and how has that changed since 1900?

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

A baby born in the US in 2018 could expect to live 78.7 years, up from 47.3 in 1900. The sharpest drop was in 1918, to 39.1 years, during the influenza pandemic. This CDC dataset stops at 2018; later NCHS reports put life expectancy at 78.4 years in 2023 and 79.0 in 2024, after a fall during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How to read this chart

Each point is how long a baby born in that year could expect to live, if death rates stayed as they were that year. It is an average, so it is pulled down a lot when many babies and young people die. Hover or tap a point to read its year and value.

Questions to discuss

  1. Find the sharpest drop on the chart. What happened in the world that year?
  2. Life expectancy in 1900 was under 50. Does that mean most adults died in their 40s? What else could lower the average?
  3. What changes in medicine, food or public health could explain the long rise?

Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Death rates and life expectancy at birth (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2018

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