the 'fiscal cliff' explained in charts
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The ‘Fiscal Cliff’ explained in charts
A critical review of a recent gallery of charts from the Washington Post
Jonathan A. Schwabishjschwabi@yahoo.com@jschwabish
The Set Up
For a few weeks now, the Washington Post has posted a gallery of charts to help explain what is meant by the ‘Fiscal Cliff’: http://goo.gl/V46U6
Although the 7 charts are a collection of simple bar charts, from a data visualization perspective they leave a lot to be desired
The Challenge
This slide deck contains my redesign of all 7 charts.
I followed 5 basic rules:1.Use the actual data 2.Do not overly modify text or
labels3.Use a single color scheme and
font4.Only use Microsoft Excel5.Apply good data visualization
principles
Use the Actual Data (and do not add extra data elements)
Except for Slide #6—”Sequester cuts to the FEMA budget”—all of the data were either available on the source websites or in the gallery itself (for slide #6, I eyeballed the values)
Do not overly modify text or labels (unless absolutely necessary)
Even though some of the labels were shorthand or incomplete, the objective of the challenge was to improve the visualizations, not correct syntax
Use a single color scheme and font
The gallery is a collection of charts from multiple sources (4 appear to have been made directly by Post staff) so the color schemes vary as do the fonts
A single design scheme can improve the appearance and clarity of the gallery
(I use the ‘Corbel’ throughout)
Only use Microsoft Excel
Because many people use Excel extensively, I wanted to show that creating quality data visualization does not require complex software or knowledge of programming languages
Apply good Data Visualization Principles
My redesigns incorporate simple strategies:• keep data and labels close together• deemphasize tick marks, gridlines, axes (i.e., ‘chartjunk’)• where possible, include data
directly on the chart
Final Notes
Each of the redesigned charts is preceded by a copy of the original chart, either from the source website or as a screen shot from the Washington Post (hence the blurriness in some of the images)
These redesigns are a start. Please feel free to add comments to this SlideShare page or contact me directly with thoughts, critiques, or suggestions
A Detailed Parenthetical
I just wanted to insert a detailed note about the first two charts from the Tax Policy Center (TPC). In the first chart, I chose to focus on the distributional analysis and sacrifice the imagery of the rising average federal tax rate as incomes rise (that is, the height of the bars). I didn’t get much of the distributional story from the original TPC distributional chart because it was just a mess of stacks and colors. The second chart—Average Federal Tax Rates by Income Quintile—tells me that basic story more clearly anyways. An alternative approach would be to use several small charts (‘small multiples’) and stack them together in some way, but I chose to stick to the spirit of the challenge and only redesign the single chart. Plus, had TPC made a series of small charts, it’s not clear to me the Washington Post would have picked it up.
The ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Explained in Charts
Lowest Second Middle Fourth Highest 80-99% Top 1% All
Payroll Tax
Health reform taxes
2001- High Income cuts
Stimulus Credits
Extenders
Estate Tax
2001-03 low/middle cuts
AMT Patch
Fiscal Cliff Components (Percentage)
Quin-tile
2003 - High Income capital gains and
dividends
Quintile
Lowest 2nd Middle 4th Highest 80-99% Top 1% All0
10
20
30
40
0.6
8.0
14.0
17.4
25.222.8
31.2
19.4
3.7
4.1
3.8
4.2
5.8
5.1
7.2
5.0
Average Federal Tax Rate, by Cash Income Percentile, 2013(Percent)
Increase due to tax changes
Baseline
"Doc fix" expiration
ACA Taxes
Unemployment Benefit Expansion
AMT/Other
Debt Ceiling Deal
Payroll Tax Cut
Bush Tax Cuts
0 50 100 150 200 250
11
18
26
65
65
95
221
Size of Components of the "Fiscal Cliff"(Billions of dollars)
<10
10-20
20-30
30-40
40-50
50-75
75-100
100-200
200-500
500-1,000
>1,000
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
64.4
26.5
5.6
2.8
2.2
7.8
16.7
8.5
6.2
26.2
16.4
Thousand dollar
increments
Marginal Tax Rate Increase Under the Fiscal Cliff, by Income Bracket(Percent)
Tax Cuts Sequester Jobs Measures AMT Patch Tax Extenders ACA Taxes Doc Fix0
100
200
300
400
500
435
158150
130
6050
30
181
201 196
69
29 23 20
Economic Impact of Fiscal Cliff, Zandi Multipliers(Billions of dollars)
Economic ImpactBudget Impact
Disaster Relief State, local programs
Salaries and expenses
Emergency food, shelter
Flood hazard mapping
0
200
400
600580
175
75
25 25
Sequester Cuts to the FEMA Budget (Millions of dollars)
288
1.3
108
0.7
42
0.1
40
0.4
24
0.4
Payroll /UI
Bush cuts (high)
Bush cuts (low/middle)
Nondefense
Defense
Effect on Deficit(Billions of dollars)
Effect on GDP(Percentage)
Effect on Fiscal Cliff Components on Deficit and GDP
Total Ef-fect:
$503 billion
Total Ef-fect: 2.9%
Contact me
www.slideshare.net/jschwabish jschwabi@yahoo.com
@jschwabish
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