About Our Data and Sources

The data used in this project was sourced from an incredible set of data compiled by Nick Powers. His work in collecting and processing such a massive set of data and making it completely free and accessible to everyone was instrumental to this project. We cannot express enough gratitude for the time, energy, and care he put into his data, and without it, none of this would have been possible.

For those interested, access to the entire dataset is available here, and a spreadsheet containing all of the sources can be downloaded by clicking here. If you happen to appreciate the quality, accessibility, and transparency of Nick's data as much as we do, hop on over to his website and show him some love.

Static Maps

We often find ourselves measuring costs in terms of work hours, so when we saw this data, we knew a burger-colored choropleth map would really get the message across. In our tomato-colored states, we can buy over 350 big macs if we work full-time at media-wage in that state. Fascinating to see this representation of prices across the country, isn't it?

To take a look at median wages across the country, we thought it would be important to show how many hours of minimum-wage work it would take to earn a month's worth of the median rent in that state. In the states with the darkest shade of orange, minimum-wage workers would need to work over 150 hours. Take a look at the distribution, does it surprise you?

While we're on the topic of income and wages, let's take a look at the differences between sexes in the U.S.. Here, we've shown the percent difference between the average income of men and the average income of women in each state. In the dark blue states, men make, on average, 30-35% more than women.

Interactive Map

Okay, your turn to explore! We've divided up the data into categories, and you can feel free to mix and match as many selections as you want from as many of the categories as you want. Make sure to click "update map" every time you make changes to your selected data. Once you've updated the map, click on any of the 50 states to view the selected data for that state. For those who would prefer to view the map on its original page, you can find that here.