June 2, 2014

Jersey City 2014 Budget in 4 Easy Graphs

June 2, 2014

Recently joined OpenJC, a Code for America brigade, and for my first project I worked with Anna Lukasiak to create a set of graphs the 2014 Jersey City Municipal budget for a Budget Forum run by CivicJC.

We began with a scanned pdf which Anna converted into a set of Excel spreadsheets and loaded the data into interactive treemaps. I then made the following four basic charts as an introduction to the revenue and spending of the Jersey City Municipal Government.

The first graph compares the municipal budget to the JC agency budgets. Then a simple stacked bar chart to compare the major revenue sources vs the city spending. Final two charts provide more detail into the revenue and spending

Data can be found on our project page.

The Board of Education budget is approximately 150 million dollars more than the city's municipal budget however most of the funding for the schools is from NJ state government.

The Board of Education budget is separate from the city budget and is approximately 150 million dollars more. Most the local school funding is from the state.

The top 3 sources of revenue for Jersey City (80%) are property taxes, abatements (properties with tax breaks offered to owners/developers) and state aid. While 71% of the spending goes to 5 major items: police, health insurance, debt payments, fire, and pensions.

The other revenues for the city, the bottom 20%, are from licenses, fees, permits, sale of land, taxes collect for library etc...

Finally, while the autonomous agencies have separate budgets, they will receive payments from the city which cover some of their costs. For example the Incinerator Authority gets $34 million while the Library get $8 million and the Parking Authority get around $1 million.

Catherine Mulbrandon

May 18, 2014

US Housing Boom, Bust and Recovery Maps

Catherine Mulbrandon

May 18, 2014

A set of housing maps which I create with Matthew Mulbrandon of DesignandGeography.com. There you can find a series of posts about the housing market including:

Catherine Mulbrandon

May 16, 2014

Real Rolling Gold Returns Compared to Stocks 1928-2013

Catherine Mulbrandon

May 16, 2014

An update of a previous post comparing the average compound rolling returns (adjusted for inflation) for both stocks and gold over 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 year intervals.

For the period 1928-2013, the average annual compound real return of stocks = 6.3% and gold = 2.0%. However, the price of gold was controlled by the government until the mid-70s when the US finally abandoned the gold standard. For the period 1976-2013, the average returns were stocks = 7.2% and gold = 2.0%.

Gold Data from MeasuringW orth. Stock data from Damodaran Online | Updated Data | Historical Returns on Stock Bonds and Bills - United States. CPI from Measuring Worth.

Graphs created in OmniGraphSketche r then pasted into Illustrator.

Catherine Mulbrandon

April 17, 2014

Taxes

How much do federal taxes redistribute income?

Catherine Mulbrandon

April 17, 2014

Taxes

In the graph below, the closer the curve is to the gray, diagonal line the more equal the distribution.

In the next couple of graphics, I focus on the effect on federal taxes on different income groups.

Graphics made in OmniGraphSketcher and Adobe Illustrator. Data from Congressional Budget Office. “Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007.” Summer 2012. http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42729. Congressional Budget Office. “The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2008 and 2009.” August 2012. http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43373.

Take a look at more data visualizations from my book, An Illustrated Guide to Income in the United States.