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 much have U.S. home prices risen since 1975?
  2. What share of people use the internet in each country?

Chart 1 of 2 · Housing

How much have U.S. home prices risen since 1975?

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

In the second quarter of 2026, FHFA's index of U.S. home prices reached 720, about 12 times its level in early 1975 (the index is 100 in the first quarter of 1980). Prices fell about 19% from their early-2007 peak to mid-2012 in the housing bust, then rose about 37% in just over two years from early 2020. The index follows repeat sales and refinance appraisals of the same single-family houses with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, and it is not adjusted for inflation.

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: Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), House Price Index, all-transactions index for the U.S. (Public domain (U.S. government work; FHFA)) · Data as of Jun 30, 2026

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Chart 2 of 2 · World

What share of people use the internet in each country?

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

In 2024, 94.7% of people in the United States used the internet and 64.9% in India. The highest share was 100%, and the lowest 8.6%, in Burundi. 182 countries and territories had a 2024 figure. It counts people who used the internet at least once in the previous three months; places without a 2024 figure are left out.

How to read this chart

Each bar is the share of a country's people who used the internet in the previous three months. The dashed line is the whole world. The chart opens on the top and bottom of the ranking; search for a country to find its bar among the rest.

Questions to discuss

  1. Find the United States and one country on another continent. How far apart are their shares?
  2. What do the countries at the bottom of the ranking have in common? What might keep people there offline?
  3. The world figure is closer to the bottom than many rich countries are to the top. Why might that be?

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators: Individuals using the Internet (% of population) (CC BY 4.0 (credit the World Bank)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2024

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