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 1 · Banks
How much money did the banks that failed each year hold?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
The five banks that failed in 2023 held $532 billion in assets, and in 2008 Washington Mutual and 24 other failed banks held $372 billion. In 1989, at the height of the savings-and-loan crisis, 530 failed banks and thrifts held $164 billion. Banks that failed in 2025 held $126,404,000. These are dollars of the day, not adjusted for inflation, and assets are what each bank owned (mostly loans and bonds) at its last report before it failed. Depositors lose money only on accounts above the insurance limit; failed banks are usually sold to other banks.
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
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