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 · 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
Open the chart and its numbersChart 2 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
- Is the United States above or below the world rate, and by about how many percentage points?
- A country can have low unemployment while many people earn very little. How is that possible?
- 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
Open the chart and its numbersChart 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
- Find the year with the highest rate. About how much lower is the rate in the latest year?
- Many people say they think crime is rising. How could that belief and this chart both seem true to different people?
- 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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