A line chart is a very common way of visualizing linear data (for example, time-based data). For our discussion on line charts, we're going to create a chart that shows the increase in income in the US over the last 30 years. We'll show this data indexed to a specific year and the absolute growth. We'll use the following two datasets:
- Unadjusted dollars: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA646N
- Adjusted dollars: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
These datasets are based on the US Census data, but have already been cleaned up. We can use the adjusted dollars to show the relative increase in income, and the unadjusted to show the absolute growth in income:
So, while it might seem that people are getting richer, at this point we're basically at the level of 1996, and in no way back before the 2008 crisis. At the top right, you can download...