The Biggest Issue of 2010, In One Chart

[archerships]

via politicalcalculations.blogspot.com

"In this chart, where we've graphed the trajectory of the total spending of the federal government with respect to the median household income in the U.S. for the years from 1967 through 2009, we see that the U.S. federal government's spending today has decoupled from the primary source of income that is required to sustain it.

Worse, it has literally "gone vertical" during the last two years. "

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2010/09/biggest-issue-of-2010-in-on...

Posted via email from crasch's posterous

Comments

[persona.livejournal.com]

I'd be -slightly- more impressed with a log graph, what with the compounding effect of inflation over the last half century. It'd only be a little less dramatic.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

Why are they comparing total federal spending to median household income? Shouldn't they be comparing per capita federal spending to median household income, or total federal spending to total household income?

Also, you should probably expect economic busts to correspond to vertical segments, and booms to correspond to horizontal segments, since government and household spending have several complementary components.

[perspectivism.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't they be comparing per capita federal spending to median household income

That graph would look exactly the same! Same shape exactly, just different numbers on one axis.

Median vs mean at least would make a difference...but I bet not much of one, and even likely make it more extreme...especially if we truly counted peoples' massive "on-paper losses" over the last few years as negative income.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

The graphs would only look the same if the population had remained constant. Since the population has been increasing, the graph for per capita federal spending would curve downwards compared to the total federal spending.

[perspectivism.livejournal.com]

ah, good point! That DOES exaggerate the graph.