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 3 · Inflation
How fast are US prices rising?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
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
- Find two times when inflation was highest. What was happening in the country then?
- If inflation falls from 8% to 3%, are prices going down, or just rising more slowly?
- 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
Open the chart and its numbersChart 2 of 3 · Wealth
What is the median household net worth by age?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
In the Federal Reserve's 2025 survey, the typical (median) household headed by someone under 35 had a net worth of $32,820, and one headed by someone 35 to 44 had $156,000. The median was $254,670 for ages 45 to 54, $411,340 for 55 to 64, $431,900 for 65 to 74 and $504,600 for 75 and over, about 15 times the under-35s'. The median is the household in the middle: half have more and half less. Averages are much higher, because a few households are very rich. Net worth is what a household owns (homes, retirement accounts, stocks, businesses, cars, bank accounts) minus what it owes (mortgages, student and car loans, credit cards). The survey is taken every three years, and figures are in dollars of the survey year. People of different ages also lived through different times, so this compares age groups, not one household's path through life.
How to read this chart
Each bar is the median net worth of households, grouped by the age of the person who heads them. Net worth is what a household owns, such as a home, savings and retirement accounts, minus what it owes, such as a mortgage or student loans. The median is the household in the middle: half have more and half have less.
Questions to discuss
- Which age group has the highest median net worth, and about how many times the under-35 group's is it?
- Why might net worth keep rising through most of a working life, and why might it fall for the oldest group?
- A few very rich households pull the average far above the median. Why is the median a better picture of a typical household?
Source: Federal Reserve Board, Survey of Consumer Finances (Public domain (Federal Reserve Board; cite the Board as the source)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025
Open the chart and its numbersChart 3 of 3 · 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
- Find the sharpest drop on the chart. What happened in the world that year?
- Life expectancy in 1900 was under 50. Does that mean most adults died in their 40s? What else could lower the average?
- 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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