A fifty-state time series arrives in the newsroom as a single panel with fifty lines. The reader is asked to rank states at a moment, follow one state across years, and perceive the shape of the distribution — all from…
The Turnout Denominator Problem: Voting-Eligible vs. Voting-Age Population in the Rates You Chart
A turnout rate is a fraction. The numerator is a count of ballots. The denominator is a population. When the two are mismatched, the rate is wrong, and the chart that carries it is wrong in a way that looks…
The Problem With Dual-Axis Charts That Imply Correlation: A Chart Autopsy
Three copies of the same chart landed in my inbox in a single week. A rising line for federal debt held by the public, denominated in trillions of dollars. A falling line for manufacturing employment, denominated in millions of workers.…
Why the Consumer Confidence Index Is a Sentiment Measure, Not a Prediction
Once a month, on the last Tuesday, The Conference Board asks roughly 3,200 American households five questions about the economy. The answers get converted into a diffusion-style index with 1985 set to 100, published at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, and within…
Why the Consumer Confidence Index Is a Sentiment Measure, Not a Prediction
The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), published monthly by The Conference Board, records how a rotating sample of a few thousand U.S. households describe current business and job conditions and what they expect six months ahead. Its two published components, the…
Why Most Election Night Graphics Mislead More Than They Inform: A Chart Autopsy of Animated Maps and Probability Cones
November 5, 2024. Millions of us sat through the same ritual: county-level returns filling in across a national choropleth map, color bleeding across state lines in real time. The visual metaphor was doing a lot of heavy lifting. It implied…
Why the Consumer Confidence Index Is a Sentiment Measure, Not a Prediction
The Consumer Confidence Index, or CCI, comes out every month from The Conference Board. It is one of the most quoted U.S. economic indicators. It is also one of the most consistently misread. The index is a sentiment measure: a…
Why the Consumer Confidence Index Is a Sentiment Measure, Not a Prediction
The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) is a monthly survey-based measure of how U.S. households assess current business and labor market conditions and their expectations for the next six months. It sits alongside the University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment,…
Why the Consumer Confidence Index Is a Sentiment Measure, Not a Prediction
The Consumer Confidence Index, or CCI, comes out every month from The Conference Board. It gets quoted constantly in U.S. policy reporting. It also gets misread constantly. The index is a sentiment measure. It captures what surveyed households say they…
How to Visualize Demographic Change Over Time Responsibly
Demographic change is the measurable shift in a population’s size, age structure, geographic distribution, or composition over a defined period. It sits at the intersection of economic policy, public opinion, and civic data because nearly every long-term policy question—pension solvency,…