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 · Wealth
How much wealth does each generation hold?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
In the quarter ending June 2026, households headed by baby boomers (born 1946 to 1964) held $97.4 trillion, 52.5% of all U.S. household wealth. Gen X (born 1965 to 1980) held $47.7 trillion, 25.7%; millennials and younger (born 1981 or later) held $20.8 trillion, 11.2%; and the Silent Generation and earlier (born before 1946) held $19.8 trillion, 10.7%. Generations are compared at different ages, so older ones have had longer to build wealth. Wealth here is net worth: what households own (homes, stocks and mutual funds, pensions and retirement accounts, private businesses, cars and other belongings, bank deposits) minus what they owe (mortgages, credit cards, student and car loans). The Fed estimates each quarter by combining its Financial Accounts with its Survey of Consumer Finances, taken every three years, so the newest quarters are estimates that get revised.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: Federal Reserve Board, Distributional Financial Accounts (Public domain (Federal Reserve Board; cite the Board as the source)) · Data as of Jun 30, 2026
Open the chart and its numbersChart 2 of 3 · Energy
Where does US electricity come from?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
In 2025 natural gas made 40.8% of US electricity, followed by nuclear (17.7%) and coal (16.6%). Wind made 10.5% and solar 6.7%. Solar counts only utility-scale plants, not rooftop panels, and the 2025 figures are preliminary.
How to read this chart
Each bar is one energy source's share of all the electricity made in the U.S. in a year, so the bars add up to about 100%. The bars start at zero, so a bar twice as long means twice the share. Solar counts only large power plants, not panels on rooftops.
Questions to discuss
- Which source makes the most electricity? About how many times more than the smallest bar?
- Which of these sources burn fuel and which don't? What share of electricity comes from each group?
- Why might a chart of this kind look different in your state than for the whole country?
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review (Table 7.2a) (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025
Open the chart and its numbersChart 3 of 3 · World
How has the world's population grown since 1960?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
The world had 8.22 billion people in 2025, about 2.7 times the 3.02 billion of 1960. It passed 8 billion in 2023. Figures are mid-year estimates from the United Nations, which revises them as new censuses come in.
How to read this chart
Each point is the number of people alive in the world in the middle of that year, estimated by the United Nations. The axis starts at zero, so the height of the line shows the true size. Look at how steep the line is to see how fast the population grew.
Questions to discuss
- Judging from the chart, about how many years did it take the world to add its most recent billion people?
- Is the line getting steeper or flatter in recent years? What does that tell you about the growth rate?
- These numbers are estimates that the UN revises. Why is it hard to count every person on Earth?
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators: Population, total (CC BY 4.0 (credit the World Bank)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025
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