I have plotted the 3-Month T-bills: Secondary Market rate (green line) vs the inflation adjusted (i.e. Real) 3-Month T-bills rate (orange) from Jan 1934-Sept 2008. The inflation number I used is CPI-U 3-month % change multiplied by 4.
{Click on the image to take a closer look}

Data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
[tags]United States, Interest Rate[/tags]
by Catherine Mulbrandon
in Other
I found this interactive graphic on a site called Many Eyes displaying data about subprime loans by state. Click on the thumbnail to load the graph.


6/29/2008 I had to remove the interactive graph from my site because it was crashing the site search.
Here is the annual percent change of inflation (CPI) in the Untied States from 1774 to 2007, which I graphed in my previous post, but this time I added historical events to the graph: Wars, Banking Panics, Pegging Paper Money to the Gold and Silver Standard, Establishment of the Federal Reserve and the US Mint.
{Click on the image to take a closer look}

Data from MeasuringWorth.org
[tags]United States, Inflation[/tags]
{Click on the image to take a closer look}

I found a Federal Reserve article that analyzed the change in Average Hourly Earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers. After adjusting for inflation using the Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) {instead of the Consumer Price Index-Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W)} and including an estimate for worker’s benefits, the author concluded that workers’ hourly earnings (wages plus benefits) actually increased by 16% over 30 years (1975-2005) rather than decreased. Here, I graphed the full history, 1964-2006, but used the approach laid out in the article to show the effect of inflation and benefits. BTW, if you earned $16.76 an hour in 2006 that gave you an annual income of $33,520 (assuming you worked full-time).
See also:
Average Income in the United States
Total Income of Top, Middle, & Bottom
[tags]income distribution, income inequality, Federal Reserve, wages, middle class[/tags]
Addendum: This was past on to me from a reader who found it on Marginal Revolution