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 states have the most robberies?
  2. How fast are US prices rising?
  3. What is the unemployment rate in each country?

Chart 1 of 3 · Crime

Which states have the most robberies?

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

In 2025, District of Columbia had the highest robbery rate, about 348 per 100,000 people, followed by California (95) and New York (91). Idaho (6), Wyoming (10) and West Virginia (10) had the lowest; the U.S. rate was about 50. Rates count only the police agencies that reported to the FBI; in a few states, such as Florida and Mississippi, those cover only about 80 to 85% of residents. Since 2021, when the FBI began taking only its newer NIBRS reports, state rates don't line up exactly with earlier years.

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: 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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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 · 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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