Inflation and Price/Earnings Since 1880

Copies of this graphic can be purchased at Zazzle

Inflation is when prices go up. However, inflation's relationship to stock prices can be a little more complex. In this graph, I am revisiting historical data I used several years ago in a series of historical graphs looking at the stock market (see GDP per Capita vs US Stock Prices and Real Growth in Stock Returns Dividends Reinvested).

I graphed the price/earnings ratio back to 1880 and highlighted the years that inflation was high and when there was deflation. The P/E is calculated from trailing 10-year earnings. The low inflation years (5% or less) had the highest P/E while the high inflation years has the lowest P/Es. Deflation years had P/Es near the average.

S&P data from Robert Shiller and CPI data from MeasuringWorth. Graphic was created using OmniGraphSketcher.

Government Salaries in Texas

From a very interesting database of Texas Government Employee Salaries run by The Texas Tribune, I created three data graphics for An Illustrated Guide of Income in the United States showing their distribution (pages 92–94).

I start with graphing the distribution of all public employee salaries below $250,000, 99.7% of all state employees, listing the most common job titles I found: teachers and professors, police officers, clerks and administrative assistants, bus operators, child protective services specialist and mental retardation assistants.

However, to graph the long tail of the income distribution I have to graph individual salaries. Many are heads of surgery departments and head coaches. The highest salary goes to the head football coach at the University of Texas at Austin. (Salary of $2.5 million plus a bonuses of $2.7 million for a total of $5.2 million)

Another way to show how much inequality exists with these salaries is to plot the cumulative share of Texas public employees vs cumulative share of their salaries. But how does this compare to the Untied States as a whole? I found in a report from the CBO, a graph plotting the 2007 cumulative share of all US households against household income which I used as a stand in for everyone in the US. You can see that the US household income distribution is more unequal than salaries of Texas state employees.

Data sources: The Texas Tribune and the Congressional Budget Office.

Design notes: Graphs were created using OmniGraphSketcher, copied into Adobe Illustrator where annotations were added. The illustrator file was then placed into an InDesign document for the book. View all the graphics from the book online.

Highest Paying Jobs in the US: 2005

While athletes, movie stars and other celebrities can earn very high incomes, the majority (61%) of very high-income people (> $1,246,000) work as corporate executives or in the finance industry. When you account for all taxpayers with income greater than 1.2 million a year, the list includes: Lawyers; Medical jobs; Real estate jobs; Entrepreneurs; Business operations; Computer, math, engineering, technical jobs; Skilled sales; Professors and scientists; Farmers & ranchers

Data source: Jobs and Income Growth of Top Earners and the Causes of Changing Income Inequality: Evidence from U.S. Tax Return Data (pdf)

What a Toxic Asset looks like [Planet Money]

From Planet Money's blog I have been enjoying a series of podcasts by Plant Money's team in which they bought toxic asset which has more than 2,000 mortgages. They paid $1,000 for a piece that used to be worth around $75,000.

Their interactive graphic shows how this asset was created with mortgages across the country, how many payments they have received from it, and how it has been losing value.

In the beginning Dec 2006, "Toxie" was a little sick

But by July 2010, "Toxie" was a almost dead...

FTSE 100 Visualized [Jeremy Christopher]

Posters and book created by Jeremy Christopher found via Datavisualization.ch The poster is one of several which explain the history, value, and composition of the FTSE 100. It is rare that I see basic financial data visualized with this much attention to the aesthetics of the design.

The book pages layer to create the center color circles which represent the sectors weightings which I though was clever.

Where are the billionaires?

Found via FastCoDesign Each circle represents a billionaire but when appropriate the company that they associated with is labeled. And of course United States leads the way with number of billionaires. I liked seeing the data presented on a map; having a geographic distribution shows off the number of non-US billionaires. It would have been nice to see their net worth included in the infographic.

Unemployment by Industry: 2009-2010

From Shrinkage is Good A breakdown of employment by different industries and along with unemployment statistics. Although some of the graphs are a little confusing, if you look at the last graph you can see the unemployment rate by sector, 2009 vs 2010. Red bars means the rate was going up blue bars the rate was going down.

US National Debt 1940-2010 [Chicago Tribune]

From the Chicago Tribune found via infographics

Australia's top 10 taxes generate 90 percent of their revenue

Day 24 of 28 Days of Tax Data From Australia’s future tax system

90 percent of the tax revenue collected by the Australian government (including the state and local government) came from 10 taxes:

International corporate tax rates 2001 and 2008

Day 22 of 28 Days of Tax Data From Australia's future Tax System

Some interesting data from a report on Australia's Tax system. Both graphs are displaying statutory corporate tax rate (i.e. the tax rate that is imposed on taxable income of corporation). Notice that the average of  OECD countries has decreased from 32.5% (2001) to 26.6% (2008)

Statutory corporate tax rate 2001

Statutory corporate tax rate 2008