(Green=Asian American. Purple=Latino. Orange=white. Pink=Native American. Blue=African American. Click to enlarge. Alternate view here.)
If you want to see your country for real, take a look at The Measure of America, a website and book about how we're doing. The project tracks what it calls the Human Development Index, factoring in health and education and standard living. The findings make sense, intuitively -- we all know that some of us live better than others, and that we can sometimes predict that. What I find startling is the size of the gap:
The typical Asian American in New Jersey lives one quarter century longer, is eleven times more likely to have a graduate degree, and earns $33,149 more per year than the typical Native American in South Dakota, whose earnings are below the median American earnings of 1960.
You could say that sure, of course the person in New Jersey makes more money than the one in South Dakota -- the states operate on very different economic scales. But I find it very hard to think away the outcome of that, with one person reasonably expecting to live 25 years longer than another. We're supposed to be the United States of America, aren't we?
Bonus love: The Measure of America compiles data by state and by congressional district. Data hounds, tell us what you see about where you live. This is a goldmine.
(Click the chart to enlarge it.)
Leave a Comment:
Dear Rachel - my pet peeve are meaningless figures. This is an example of one. It doesn't make any sense at all without a figure legend or labeling of the x-axis. Thus, it ineffective in making your point or any point.
BeeBird, thank you. I knew something was off (missing) in addition to "where are all the Anglo's? It only shows minorities. I want to see the differences between all groups, not just some groups.
It appears to be incomplete.
This one's clear to me, actually. You've got years on the left, vertically -- that's life expectancy. And then you see how various people do, by race, gender and geography. Those are the symbols in the middle.
For instance, in the third stack, Asian American women currently have the longest life expectancy. They're the green circle, up by 90 years. African American men have the lowest. They're the light blue square, down by 70 years.
No, orange represents white people. I'll redo the screengrab.
And what drives me nuts is when people are too gorram lazy to click on the link provided by TRMS that explains the information they (TRMS) are providing.
i agree, this figure sucks.
No. As the legend states:
Green=Asian American. Purple=Latino. Orange=white. Pink=Native American. Blue=African American
No x-axis labeling is needed if you read the labels on the data. It's clear that the first stack is ethnic groups both genders, the next is genders, the third stack is ethnic groups separated by gender, the fourth is states, the fifth is congressional districts, and the last is cities.
This is not rocket science, folks. As Mickey Mouser said, use the links provided to get more information. It can't always be all-inclusive in the grab used to lead off the blog thread.
I couldn't make any sense of the image that appears here either. The alternate view that labels the x axis is very helpful. But all the overlapping marks is fail.
I'm a retired teacher in Texas, I haven't bought a new blouse or pair of jeans in two years. The money goes for Living expenses. My jeans have patches. I've learned to do without.
Do you have a point? You retired and didn't have enough income. The CoL over the last 2 years hasn't change much. Has your retirement check changed for some reason? And why the last two years? The economy tanks more then 2 years ago.
Geezus GeekOid - who pee'd in your Cheerio's this morning!?
You may want to click on the last link Larua provided...then click on the related links in that..there are a few, but some more directly related, and easy to find (map - America - Texas - income...)...then maybe realize you whacked the living crap out of a person who was simply adding her insight to what those related statistics meant/related to her personally...maybe?...not to mention, whacked the living crap out of a person who already has been, and apparently still continues to be, fending off life's considerable measurable wackes...just saying is all.
Well aren't we grumpy, BeeBird. I'm pretty sure the image is meant as a teaser for the website that the article is pointing us to.
An excellent interactive chart. From "maps" you can add various states to "charts" and compare regional data, i.e., education vs. income; demographics vs. health; etc. It is clear that educational access has a direct coorelation to earnings, etc. It is also clear that the American southern states, and much of the American middle are deminishing in almost all catagories, as is the percentage of total population. Both coasts reflect the migration of those seeking opportunity as that is where the jobs are going forward in a Global economy. Therefore, resources, and investments in middle America should include creating opportunities for employment that support those jobs currently located on the coasts, i.e. a transportation infrastructure, and manufacturing. As the map demonstrates, Middle America is being "emptied out" in almost every catagory, leaving behind the least educated, poorest, unskilled etc.
My husband & I are from Indianapolis and he has been out of work for 18 months after 37 years in the industrial distribution business. He sends out resume after resume and he can't even get a return phone call or email. It seems that if you are 56 or older and a male you're poison to potential employers. Thanks, Wall Street...this is your fault. That's life in paradise in the Midwest.
They totally have the senators wrong for AZ - they've given us Arkansas' senators. Cute, but AZ = Arizona, AR= Arkansas.
Still, Blanche Lincoln is technically a step up from Jon Kyl.
I've also just discovered that I'm apparently ridiculously over-educated for someone living in AZ CD7. However, I probably won't live long enough or ever make enough money (if I stay here) to pay off my student loans. But at least I don't live in AZ CD4.
Noticed if you take the map of right to work states from Wikipedia and place it over the lower range states they practically match up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
Right to work is a clever euphemism for "right to be underpaid and abused".
If you adjust/correct the states for demographic differences, I wonder how it changes (e.g. Hawaii is 40% asian, more hispanics in the S.W., etc.)
Pretty cool link - the fly-out menus were a bit of a hassle for clumsy ole me (they tended to fly away before I could get what I wanted out of them), but very interesting. A lot of info to absorb right now though; I'm going to have to peruse it more when I have more time.
Asians are observedly more hardworking and smarter than the average Americans, Latin Americans, Native Americans, African-Americans.
It took me a while to figure out what to do, because I thought that the first link I could click would take me to the promoted resource. It's actually the 4th one in, where it says "Measure of America" in bold. Go there, and then click on the link to interactive maps. From there, you get some easy-to-follow data visualizations about quality of life in the US. It's interesting and fun to use.
I've actually wished that there was something like this for all kinds of things (psychographic data correlated to economic strata; potable water availability worldwide, "heat maps" showing armed conflicts around the world, etc.), so I appreciate seeing this and the data it presents.
This is a very good reference guide. Thanks for linking.