Careful Senator, your politics are showing

I just got back from DC where I shared my "solving problems with pictures" tools with the U.S. Senate. It was an eye-opening experience.

Doug Steiger, New Policy Director of the Democratic Policy Committee, invited me to talk to the heads of staff of the Senators from the Democratic side of the aisle.

About sixty of us met in hearing room 628 in the Dirksen Senate Building, across the street from the US Capitol. Since I normally consult with business executives, it was fascinating to talk about the challenges that political staff deal with daily. After all, this is Washington, and this is REAL politics.

Whenever I give a workshop, I ask in advance for a sample problem relevant to my audience, so that I can demonstrate the power of pictures in a context drawn from their real-world experience.

In this case, Doug supplied me with a thick set of economic data comparing eight years of the Clinton Administration with eight years of the George W Bush administration.

Once drawn out, the results are shocking. I share here the drawings that I made for the Senators. (Data sources are listed at the bottom of this posting.)

After eight years of Clinton GDP rose more than 4%. After eight years of Bush it fell to 2.5%:

After eight years of Bush the national debt nearly doubled, and a budget surplus became a budget debt:

New jobs fell; the number of Americans below the poverty line increased:

The number of American families with health insurance fell (the costs of insurance rose), and family income also fell:

The prices of everything went up (at a far greater pace than inflation):

Yet our ability to pay for things fell:

Our dependence on foreign oil went up (and Bush was the "oil president"?):

Our trade deficit doubled while the dollar halved in value against the Euro:

And lastly, every major nation's perception of the US fell precipitously:

Based on looking at this data alone, there was only one more picture I could draw:

Data sources:
Bureau of Economic Analysis
Department of the Treasury
Congressional Budget Office
Bureau of Labor Statistics
United States Census Bureau
Kaiser Study of Employer Health Care Benefits
Energy Information Administration
Insurance Information Institute
Pew Research Center

Comments

[Andy Garlikov]

Dan, this is fascinating stuff, and I enjoy seeing your work. The power of the artwork, unfortunately, masks the lack of causal relationship in the data. If you were to graph Clinton's first two years (under a Dem Congress) vs his last 6 years (under a GOP Congress), it would show a pretty stark difference. Same to show Bush's first 6 years under a GOP Congress vs last 2 years under a Demo Congress. On some scales, I suspect the Congressional party will show a stronger effect. (Though still no way to discern cause and effect from the artwork!)

I know your intent with that audience was to be partisan and subjective, so I can hardly complain about a lack of objectivity. You demonstrate how powerful sketches can be, but (unintentionally) how a powerful medium can be used just as easily to distort or mislead as to inform.

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[Andres]

I like the way you presented the data.

I wonder what was the conclusion they got from the process (I know they focused a lot on what the data represented, this is great for them).
Did they "get it"?
Were there more follow ups about how to use this so the representatives use more images to explain ideas?

I work in DC and I know they love to just talk talk talk, and it seems that they use a confusing, overly-refined language on purpose.

I hope many of them start using these techniques to present information in a better way, and to simplify their communication style with the public.

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[Joe the Dealmaker]

But-but-but, Clinton got a BJ!

[arman]

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[Jonny Goldstein]

Dan,

I found a clear representation of the roots of the subprime mortgage problem. It's a google slideshow using stick figures. Warning: some profane language.

Also, it's more of a dialog than an infographic. Still, excellent stuff.

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true&pl

[dave]

While I'm no bush fan, it's not really a "comparison" of bush vs clinton - it only shows the end of Clinton with the end of Bush. It says nothing about how Clinton actually did (compare end of Clinton to the beginning of Clinton). Doing so might make the case stronger, but probably not in every category. The link provided by GW (http://www.legalhardware.com/economics/charts.htm) does a better job of this.

[Rodolpho]

Wow, now I have a notion of how bad things are in the US. Thanks for making it easier to understand with your graphs.

[uurf]

@jra
no, they won't.
http://tinyurl.com/3m2mqu

[Max]

Looks like your politics are showing too! It'd be interesting to see the other side of the aisle as well.

You should actually have drawn them a picture that shows any US Senator with words coming out of his/her mouth -- then show a simple arrow that points to it and says "lying." Most of the these a-holes (D) and (R) need to be booted.

[Donna]

I can only hope that the Republicans invite you in to show the rest of the story. This is a great example of how drawings effect us emotionally. I think that is the key to why hand drawings can be more powerful than digital charts - they speak to us on an emotional level.

[GW]

Works for me. I posted it under Cool Alert...

[Scott Davis]

If you want to see computer-generated charts of the same thing:
http://www.legalhardware.com/economics/charts.htm

Though they're not as much fun!

[Dan Roam]

Thanks Jonny -- since my wife is in real estate, I get "paid" every day to try to figure out what the heck happened. :-)

I've been working on a series of pictures to explain it, but every time I get one done another aspect of the real estate economy explodes, so I go back to the drawing board.

Case in point, 2 months back -- just the time when the first whispers about trouble at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were heard -- I started working on visuals to show how solid they were.

Glad I never published those! Same for AIG. Egads: when does this end??

I'm guessing Nov. 5.

But I wouldn't bet my life on that picture either.

[jonny goldstein]

Mark F., the official inflation rate is an average of a certain group of goods and services. Individual products may go up or down at a different rate than that average.

OK Dan, next, please find someone to pay you to do some visuals about what caused the real estate bubble. That's crying out for some visual explanation.

Good stuff Dan!

[Dan Roam]

Thanks for everyone who commented -- much appreciated. Let me respond to a bunch of comments, item by item:

Mark & Chris: Over the past twenty years of making business pictures, I have become convinced that nothing is more powerful than a hand-drawn sketch. By virtue of being hand-drawn, your audience knows that you put time into thinking about it and creating it and therefore is more willing to put equal time into looking at it -- and believing it. Think of hand-drawn pictures as the difference between hearing the studio-recorded version of a song and seeing the artist perform it live, unplugged. Which song do you "believe in" more?

Steve & jra: yes, there are potentially lots of "better" and "more accurate" sets of data to be presented. What you see here is the total set of data I was supplied. You touch on the entirely correct view that often the most insightful data is that which is NOT shown. Had I been able to compare quarter-by-quarter or collect more granular data, things could look different. That's always the problem with data, isn't it? You can only show what you got... regardless, I find even this "skewed" data set compelling.

Mark F.: I don't pretend to be an economist. What I do know is that total US inflation during both administrations averaged 2-3% per year. The price rises shown here are in the range of 50%-60% during an 8-year period. That's more than double "total standard inflation".

Karen: thanks for noticing the occasional negative Y axis. Yes: I tried to think not just about the number, but what it *meant* and how best to convey that cognitively.

Thanks again,
Dan

[Mark]

Really effective charts. For some reason they look more "real" when they are hand drawn. They reinforce the message of your book, that's for sure.

[Steve French]

A couple quibbles -

You're measuring electricity in terms of annual cost, and not per kilowatt

Americans in poverty should be a percentage, not an absolute number, as should number of people without insurance.

the prescriptions drugs of today compared to eight years ago cannot be accurately compared. Measuring it per unit of time is especially pointless.

[Daryl Mather]

Congratulations on this tremendous achievement Dan.

Its a tribute to your work and the optimism and imagination of the USA.

[patrick prothe]

Dan:

This is absolutely priceless and reinforces the power of simple pictures. It's also a bit sad to see how far we've fallen in Eight years. I'd like to show this to a friend who said then that it doesn't matter who's president. Really?

[Mark F]

"The prices of everything went up (at a far greater pace than inflation):"

Isn't the definition of inflation the rate at which the prices of everything go up?

[Karen]

Showing the Y axis pointing down was so appropriate for many of these statistics, yet it is rarely done. It shows that you were really thinking about what the numbers meant, and it communicates with great impact.

[Laurie Fowler]

I knew all of this was true, but seeing it SOOOO much better. Thanks, Dan!

Laurie Fowler
Tuscaloosa, AL

[laura macknin]

rock on.