Poverty by State (revise)

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01/24/2009

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For full info, see:
http://tinyurl.com/9s6ejc

Visualizing Poverty

Flowing Data, a site devoted to data visualizations, offers a challenge to... (More) For full info, see:
http://tinyurl.com/9s6ejc

Visualizing Poverty

Flowing Data, a site devoted to data visualizations, offers a challenge to its readers. It's called Visualize This.

Every two weeks I will post a dataset to the FlowingData forums for all of you to visualize. Download the data, visualize it (graph, chart, map, infographic, animation, etc), and post your work to the thread. As we've seen already, there are many ways to visualize a single dataset, and with multiple pairs of eyes, we get stories from different points of view. I will post the best visualization at the end of each cycle.

The current challenge is to visualize US poverty statistics.

On the right is the [revised] graphic I put together. Click to enlarge. A PDF is available here.

The graphic succeeds in some ways. And it is less successful in others. In all, I'm proud of it. But I am going to go into detail on how it was put together plus it's strengths and limitations. I was very excited to try this precisely because it is not a professional job. This allowed for some experimentation.

Hard Numbers

The original data from Kaiser State Health Facts provides basic percentages by state and age group. I wanted to try assembling data that would show the actual numbers of people living in poverty.

I found state population numbers with almost identical age breakdowns at the Northeast Midwest Institute from the same time period as the poverty stats. I found the DC stats at the Census Bureau. By correlating percentages with populations, I was able to derive hard numbers on the general populations and the numbers in poverty.

One glitch in this was in the age breaks. The poverty stats' first age group is 0-18. The population stats' first age group is 0-17. This skewed the size of the first age bracket by well over 1 percentage point. To correct this, I extrapolated. By multiplying the youth population by 1.056 (19/18), and subtracting that amount from the 18-64 category, I was able to take the skew well below 1 percent, and well within the resolution of the data.

It's important to note that this had no effect on the numbers in the graphic which are directly from the original poverty data.

I should make clear I am not a statistician. I would ask anyone who does work heavily with statistics whether my extrapolation was valid. (And also, what would be the margin of error from the extrapolation.) For this and other reasons, there is a note at the top of the image, "This graphic is an exercise. Do not use for reference." More on the disclaimer below.

Making the Image

I put the graphic together using Excel, CorelDraw and Photoshop. Excel matched the poverty and population numbers. CorelDraw assembled the bar graphs. Photoshop converted exported EPS files.

I already have CorelDraw set up to easily operate in increments of .1 inches so I'd have simple spatial relationships to work with. (Some of you might say, "can't the guy just use metric?" Well, I could, but just about all of my customers are Americans.)

Initially, I wanted the graphs laid out horizontally. But his proved troublesome. States with small populations forced the text into vanishing tininess.

At first I thought having the graph show "above" and "below" the poverty line would fit with common parlance. But the visual impact connoted the stats as buoyant -- as though, like a water line, it was keeping a population afloat. This visual connotation would have been extremely misleading.

Strengths

The main strength of the graphic is that it shows populations. Each full square represent 100,000 people. A full account of the data was still able to fit in 11x17 inches without scaling.

Collected stats for the US as a whole provides a key for reading at the state-by-state level. It invites comparison within state populations and across various states. And there is enough empty space to allow for easy reading.

Breakdowns by age group are color coordinated (Less)