Topic: Prosperity in the United States

Inspiration:

Many times within the past year(2020/2021) have found myself devastated by the present state of the world, or my perception of it, while still unable to separate myself from the constant pull of 'doom scrolling'. While listening to one of my favorite podcasts I heard this quote by Barack Obama.

"If you had to choose one moment in history in which to be born, and you didn't know in advance whether you were going to be male or female, which country you were going to be from, what your status was, you'd choose right now...[the world has never been] "healthier, or wealthier, or better educated, or in many ways more tolerant, or less violent, than it is today."

This quote as well as a podcast made me want to look into the truth of this statement, as well as remind myself that what spurs growth is struggle.

Goals:

1. Combine the growth and decay of world concerns to gain insight on the United States’ current overall position compared with the past.
2. Show the dashboard user how the factors most important to them have changed over time.

About the Visualization:

1. The data spans only eleven years, to allow for the maximum number of included factors.
2. Directions for interactivity are included within the presentation.
3. Graphs labeled 'Growth from 2006 %' represent how much each factor has grown over time.
   
4. Graphs labeled 'Rate of Change %' show the rate at which each of the factors are changing year to year, what factors are getting better/worse most quickly, and if there are trends within years for growth.
   

Questions to ask yourself:

1. For the Factors that you care about most, How have their rate of growth or decay changed over the years?
2. Are there trends to be found? Do the rates seem correlated with each other?

Things to Remember(Bias):

1. All factors that affect change in the US are not analyzed in the data.
2. All factors are not equal. The results will change as the importance of each factor will vary by individual, use the dashboard to explore what is most important to you.

The Data:

1. Factor sources and definitions can be found here.
2. Calculations used:
   a. Rate of Change % = ('Current Year' / 'Previous Year')-1 x 100
   b. Overall Growth % = ('Current Year' / 'Start Year(2006)')-1 x 100

Find the Published Dashboard here. 💁