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. What share of people live in poverty in your county?
  2. How fast are US prices rising?
  3. Is violent crime in the U.S. going up or down?

Chart 1 of 3 · Income and poverty

What share of people live in poverty in your county?

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

Search any of the 3,144 U.S. counties. In the Census Bureau's five-year survey ending in 2024, Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota had the highest share of people below the official poverty line, 57.6%, and Morgan County, Utah the lowest, 1.4%. The poverty line is the same across the country, so it doesn't reflect higher living costs in some places, 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

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Chart 2 of 3 · 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 3 of 3 · Crime

Is violent crime in the U.S. going up or down?

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

Down, over the long run. Police reported about 329 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2025, about 59% below the 1991 peak of about 798, and the lowest since at least 1985. The rate rose in 2020 and 2022, then fell in 2023, 2024 and 2025. In 2021 the FBI stopped taking its old summary reports and accepted only its newer, more detailed system (NIBRS); many police departments hadn't switched yet, so agencies covering only about 77% of Americans reported, against 88 to 98% in other years, and 2021's number is less certain. Rates count only the agencies that reported, so they differ a little from the FBI's national estimates, and the FBI widened its definition of rape in 2013.

How to read this chart

Each point is the number of violent crimes police reported for every 100,000 Americans that year. The line starts at zero, so its height shows the true size. In 2021 the FBI changed how it collects reports and fewer police departments sent numbers, so that year is less certain than the others.

Questions to discuss

  1. Find the year with the highest rate. About how much lower is the rate in the latest year?
  2. Many people say they think crime is rising. How could that belief and this chart both seem true to different people?
  3. Why might a change in how crimes are counted, like the one in 2021, make one year hard to compare with the rest?

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, Uniform Crime Reporting Program (Public domain (U.S. government work); source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025

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