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Interactive Graph of American Spending (GRAPH)

nytimes.com — Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers 84,000 prices in about 200 categories to form the Consumer Price Index, one measure of inflation. It ’s among the statistics that the Federal Reserve considered when it cut interest rates on Wednesday. The categories are weighted according to an estimate of what the average American spends, as shown

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  • casspa, on 05/05/2008, -2/+37Only .5% on alcohol, that's actually quite shocking
    • DeskFlyer, on 05/05/2008, -4/+26Not everyone lives in Milwaukee.
    • Scrappy1850, on 05/05/2008, -2/+23where is the weed? or hookers?
      • Hillyard, on 05/05/2008, -0/+8Misc spending
      • BTraina, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1illegal drugs, or "underground" things, aren't computed in america's gdp or cpi.
    • notoneofus, on 05/05/2008, -0/+18.5% on alcohol outside the home plus .6% on beer, wine, and liquor at home. So, 1.1%.
    • davidlow, on 05/05/2008, -5/+2Drink much?
      • thcobbs, on 05/05/2008, -1/+11Yes... if only to put up with the likes of you.
        • sofaKing812, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1You sound like my Uncle at Christmas.
    • NoStoppingUs, on 05/05/2008, -11/+5i have to poop and i'm in computer class. i think i'm going to act like someone is calling me..
    • trunkster, on 05/05/2008, -3/+1What I want to know is where these "full-service" restaurants are at.
  • fitqueenb, on 05/05/2008, -3/+13Pretty cool graph though, like how it shows you percentages and if it is on the rise or decline.
  • lucidguru, on 05/05/2008, -8/+7Where are illicit drugs on there?
    • Scrappy1850, on 05/05/2008, -7/+3and hookers?
    • Asdfglpwglion, on 05/05/2008, -0/+5Grandchild of the first post says those are in 'misc. spending'
  • karltonDance, on 05/05/2008, -2/+5Surprised by how big the "transportation" chunk is
    • drlha, on 05/05/2008, -1/+7Not sure why? America worships the car.
    • thcobbs, on 05/05/2008, -0/+5Its more telling that the housing takes up such a large percentage. If people would stick to the old fashioned no more than 30% of you income on house note, there would be no housing bubble.
      • Zippo, on 05/05/2008, -0/+3Problem is, housing costs are on the rise... wages not so much. And where you live and work really effects the housing. 30% in one city might be a decent place, 30% in another might be a *****-hole.
    • Quiwi, on 05/05/2008, -2/+1Bicycles are in the wrong category, they're in recreation when they should be in transportation :-P
    • racinfast002, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1I have a problem that transportation is a bigger percent than food. Thats just F***ed up
    • Gizza, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1Also kinda sux that one of the smalleest parts of that section is public transport.
  • Aidenag, on 05/05/2008, -6/+22Finally a graph that explains why Americans are so fat and out of shape.. The largest segment in Recreation is Cable TV... Add in dvd,tv and stereo, and it equals a good 35+% of all of recreation... And 2.4% of spending is for Fast Food..... We really are a nation of Fast food munching, couch potato's....
    • MellerTime, on 05/05/2008, -7/+26And cable alone represents more than twice our spending on health insurance... Yeah, apparently we want health insurance as long as we're not the ones actually paying for it... Healthcare cost crisis my ass. Dumbasses.

      / pays for his own insurance
      • jebudas, on 05/05/2008, -2/+8Hold up there MellerTime...
        If a person can afford $70/month for cable, but cant afford $700/month for healthcare, that doesnt mean there is not a healthcare crisis. It's not as if they could turn off their TVs and magically afford healthcare!
        • kemp34, on 05/05/2008, -1/+1$700 month for health care? I pay $100.
      • lisaawesome, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2And the people who chose cable or a new SUV or a new HDTV over paying for health insurance make those of us who honestly cannot afford the current health care costs look like jackasses. ***** even when I had health insurance I ended up paying 200 dollars to see a doctor for 10 minutes for my bronchitis. That's a bunch of ***** right there.
      • defska42, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2Lucky you, you didn't have a pre-existing condition like many Americans to the point where they can't get insurance despite the fact that they want to pay for it. Or better yet, I hope you need some surgery in a few years and your health insurance denies you coverage. Dumbass.

        / has health insurance as well, but actually cares about those that don't
    • drlha, on 05/05/2008, -0/+11Or: Its showing how ridiculously overpriced cable is in the USA. I wonder if cable internet is included in that amount?
      • inigomntoya, on 05/05/2008, -0/+12I see that Internet is in communication/Education, so I doubt it is included. At my house, high-speed Internet is a priority (enough so that we don't have cable or satellite TV). I am always surprised to go into someone's house where they have every HD channel known to man and NetZero dial-up.
        • lisaawesome, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2It surprises me even more when I walk into a home to see a massive flat screen TV with all the HD crap but NO COMPUTER AT ALL. You gotta wonder what that does to their world perception. It's like a step back in time.
      • PabloMac, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1We get the privilege to spend money to watch advertising. Advertising that, once upon a time, made TV content free to the viewer.
    • veggiemoore, on 05/05/2008, -1/+11Couch potato's what? Don't leave us hanging!
      • bkemper, on 05/05/2008, -1/+4I think schools don't teach proper apostrophe use until about third grade, so Aidenag is probably just very young. Yeah, that's it.
    • fatrandy13, on 05/05/2008, -1/+2Aidenag is so fat, and he loves to say "americans" when describing his fatness... haha. despite what my username might make you think, i'm not as fat as Aidenag, i mean "americans"
      • Aidenag, on 05/05/2008, -1/+3Fat? I wish, im boney....
      • breckinshire, on 05/05/2008, -1/+1Aidenag's momma is so fat, and she loves to say "americans" when describing her fatness... haha. despite what my username might make you think, i'm not as fat as Aidenag's momma, i mean "americans"

        When converted into a "yo momma" joke, your comment makes no sense.
        • fatrandy13, on 05/05/2008, -1/+1it was 2 seperate statements: 1. Aidenag is so fat AND (2) he loves to say "americans" when describing his fatness.. your reply makes no sense...
    • Hockey13, on 05/05/2008, -1/+3...said the person who is clearly spending a significant amount of time on his computer. Let's look at Aidenag's stats:

      24,843 diggs
      2,043 comments
      1,798 submitted
      608 made popular (NERD ALERT!)

      I'm not ripping on you for being a giant Digg nerd, I'm just saying quit being a hypocrite and stop generalizing. I spend a significant amount of my time on the couch watching awesome stuff on the internet or TV or playing awesome games on my Xbox360, but I also play hockey a lot and stay in shape. It's not my right to make value judgments about the life choices of others: obesity is not automatically a bad thing. All modern societies are tending toward some equilibrium percentage of obese people, so don't think the US is unique. Eventually we'll reach a point where we'll be able to either eliminate obesity with technology or some percentage of the population (like me) will probably never get obese.
    • Densetsu, on 05/05/2008, -1/+3Well, first of all, money spent != time spent. I can spend $30 on a football and play touch football every second day for years on end with it... or spend $80-100+ a month for a good HDTV cable package so I can catch a few good movies on the weekend and the hockey game a few times a week. Sports equipment is relatively cheap compared to cable, at least in Canada.

      Bicycle? $300.
      Tennis racquet and balls? $75.
      Soccer ball, cleats, shinpads? $150.
      Basketball? $30.
      A year of cable TV? > $1000.

      Now, I paid > $4000 for all my hockey goaltender equipment, but I'm probably in a vast minority when it comes to what people are willing to spend.
      • manitoba98xp, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1Who do you get your cable from? From Rogers, their highest-end plan is $100/mo, which is $1200 (VIP Ultimate with Movies), but besides that, all of the plans are well below $1000/year. If you really need all of those channels, you need not complain about the price.
    • 4517705, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1This doesn't prove anything - since walking or running miles a day wouldn't cost money the way cable TV does it wouldn't appear on this chart. This chart only tracks money spent not time spent.
  • Aidenag, on 05/05/2008, -6/+7Also of note, computer spending is 0.2% this year, down from 12.0% last year....(wtf?)
    • Nidy1, on 05/05/2008, -0/+25Down 12%, not down from 12%. And it's probably due to cheaper computers.
      • drlha, on 05/05/2008, -2/+3More likely due to the worsening economy means people are less likely to buy a new computer, their old one "will do" for a little while longer.
        • schnikies79, on 05/05/2008, -1/+5Or it's more likely that nothing terribly exciting has has happened in the computer world for the last few years so unless you game, there is no reason what-so-ever to buy a new computer. A three year old computer still works great. Hell, I'm typing this on a 2.5 year old core duo laptop. Why do I need to buy something new? The hardware market has more-or-less stagnated for the last few years.

          That is what I'm hearing from nearly everyone. It has jack ***** to do with the economy.
    • arch3r, on 05/05/2008, -0/+4I think you are reading the graph wrong. That -12% is the change from last year., not the actual percentage of last year. So 0.02% this year, down 12% from last year means that last year was a whopping 0.023%.
    • djchester, on 05/05/2008, -1/+2Computers are getting cheaper all the time if you compare one specific computer this year and next year, down 12% from last year seems correct.
      • mikhial66, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1And a PS2 cost more when it first came it, but that doesn't mean that gaming costs are coming down.
    • PabloMac, on 05/05/2008, -2/+1Everyone is buying iPhones to replace their computers?
      • stev31h, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1iphone is more expensive you mac weiner
        • juankovo, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1In any case, it wouldn't be counted in the "computers" category.
  • DeskFlyer, on 05/05/2008, -10/+8Where's hookers & blow?
  • mediaspree, on 05/05/2008, -4/+9Women.
  • OfNumbers, on 05/05/2008, -11/+2Buried for not including weed.
    • d3athr1d3r, on 05/05/2008, -0/+4I think that falls under "misc. personal goods"
      • inigomntoya, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1So not "Other Medical Care"? Of course, it might also be included in Miscellaneous/Other Tobacco.
        "Other Tobacco"? right...
      • crump199, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1Weed, the other tobacco.
  • n1eb, on 05/05/2008, -3/+50Afraid to show the tax cell NYT?
  • Bmarofsky, on 05/05/2008, -4/+1Very depressing...
    • crump199, on 05/05/2008, -1/+2Why?
    • Bmarofsky, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1Because I got the maximum 4% raise and most items I buy have increased in cost more than that.
  • d3athr1d3r, on 05/05/2008, -2/+11 Sad how gasoline is the third biggest portion...
    • SSUK, on 05/05/2008, -0/+5It'd be twice as big if you were anywhere outside America. Consider yourself lucky.
    • charli2na, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1I agree, how is it people spend more on gas than their car payment?
      • jizzypop, on 05/05/2008, -2/+2i dont have a car payment, yet i still pay for gas. hmm..... maybe thats how. boy, averages are fun.
    • Tebixan, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1Is it sad that gas is so expensive, or that we drive so much that it has become our 3rd largest expense?

      SSUK - How long is the average commute where you live? Do you use public transportation? I get the impression that people don't drive as much elsewhere.
    • Zippo, on 05/05/2008, -3/+1Thanks Bush... thanks a lot.
  • helraizr, on 05/05/2008, -10/+1Buried. Hookers and booze aren't on the list
    • inigomntoya, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1Oh there's plenty of booze. And hookers have to be under recreation somewhere... Admissions?
  • TopSlacker, on 05/05/2008, -10/+5Is (GRAPH) really needed? Doesn't the title make it kind of pointless...?
  • 1shawn, on 05/05/2008, -9/+10I love how the submitter put "GRAPH" in parenthesis at the end of the title when it was already stated it was a graph! Duh!
    • inigomntoya, on 05/05/2008, -2/+13Then why don't you marry it?
      • rficwizard, on 05/05/2008, -1/+3Dugg as much for the user name as for the laugh I got from your third-grade joke.
  • jnorris441, on 05/05/2008, -1/+1650% of my spending is recreation. I think I'm doing it wrong
  • MellerTime, on 05/05/2008, -0/+19Wait... We specifically track spending on indoor plants?

    It's up 3.6% over the last year... Take THAT, global warming!
    • djchester, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1no tracking, estimate:
      "The categories are weighted according to an estimate of what the average American spends"
      • Hillyard, on 05/05/2008, -1/+2Who is the average audience they poll?
  • sandog08, on 05/05/2008, -7/+5Does the person who wrote the headline work for the Department of Redundancy Department? Nice work there slick...
  • ace429k, on 05/05/2008, -0/+6pie charts kick ass.
  • ironicsans, on 05/05/2008, -5/+9Obviously, Digg needs a GRAPH section.
    • Densetsu, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2Just let digg make it's own derivative of XML for graph data... DGML? Then we're golden.
  • curtosrules, on 05/05/2008, -1/+2very interesting to say the least
  • CYG101, on 05/05/2008, -0/+4I wish i could make a graph like that for my spending...
    • 2ptyou, on 05/05/2008, -0/+4Not exactly, but close: mint.com
      • NJank, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1interesting, how does it turn a profit? surely not on my personal spending info...
        • akula89, on 05/05/2008, -1/+1I'd assume you pay to use the service
        • SSUK, on 05/05/2008, -0/+3It's probably a subsidiary of some personal finance company, which the site will probably 'recommend' you get a personal, professional quote from to reduce your spending and so forth. Maybe adverts, using AdBlock so I can't tell.
    • inigomntoya, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1I use Yodlee - but Mint looks pretty similar.
  • Ryan2845, on 05/05/2008, -3/+2Eggs up 30%.... how will the high school kids afford to egg their enemies?? What is the world coming too
    • justjoehere, on 05/05/2008, -1/+2They'll resort to TP
    • inigomntoya, on 05/05/2008, -0/+3Yeah, I hear they have had to cut back 30%. So instead of a full dozen they can only throw 8.4 eggs. So sad...
  • FaTPonY, on 05/05/2008, -2/+5The Frozen Juice Market is plummeting!
  • jzuska, on 05/05/2008, -0/+5Where is the over 50% for taxation?
    • Seldon2639, on 05/05/2008, -3/+3The only way someone is paying 50% of their income in taxes is if they're already in the 35% tax bracket (which means they make over $225,000 per year anyway), plus 13% in payroll taxes (I'll assume that this is a self-employed person, for the sake of making them pay more) and they're at 48%. Now, given that they're pretty loaded to begin with (I ignored any kind of capital gains, to keep it simple, but one could assume they make even more, and since capital gains are taxed at a lower rate, are taxed less), I'll sleep well tonight knowing that this hypothetical person has to live on only (at least) $112,500 per year. Of course, you could do an interesting study in statistics. Take the cost of taxes, then subtract the cost of building ones own roads, hiring a private police force, ect. Now, expand that across the entire population (with a standard distribution of income), and figure out whether the entire group is better, or worse, off for taxes. Keep in mind that you should factor in the fact that if a poor person has untreated TB because we don't have public hospitals, it poses a public health risk.
      • rficwizard, on 05/05/2008, -0/+7jzuska didn't say 50% *income tax*, they said 50% tax. If you count all of the taxes (income, payroll, property, sales, excise, etc.), I would not be terribly surprised if many people pay 50% in taxes. Most economists will tell you that you have to count the portion of payroll taxes that your employer pays for you, since it is part of their cost of employing you. If they weren't paying that tax, they could afford to pay you that money.
    • mckinnej, on 05/05/2008, -1/+3It isn't that bad...yet. That comes when the Democrats REALLY take control.
      • diggadigga, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1Yeah, when we get out of Iraq, the dollar is gonna go down in the dumps.
  • Seldon2639, on 05/05/2008, -6/+8The biggest issue with the current housing crisis (and even financial crisis) is that we've really monkeyed with how inflation is reported. Under President Reagan, the CPI tracking of housing prices changed from absolute house values to "owner equivalent rent". OER is almost always lower than absolute prices on homes, and inflates at a far lower rate in most economic circumstances. This, then, not only keeps the Consumer Price Index (one of the main trackers of inflation) artificially low, but makes it that it isn't reflective of inflation in *asset* prices. This is further exacerbated by Greenspan's focus on only consumer inflation, rather than asset inflation, but that's just more fuel on the fire. With inflation at 2.5%, and house prices rising much faster (since the two are almost entirely uncoupled at the point this was happening), homeowners conclude that housing actually is a good investment. If housing rises in value at 6%, with inflation at 2.5%, you have a yield per year of 3.5%. Now, this is actually lower than the yields in equity at the time, but (under normal circumstances) would also be more stable in the long term. So, people invest more and more in housing, given the low interest rates, and high returns on investment (at least on paper), but the *actual* rate of inflation should have taken the growth in home value into account, so the real rate of inflation was much higher than we saw. The market correction, under normal circumstances, wouldn't be too bad. But, given the massive returns in housing, everyone got in on the game, and wanted to have even more people as homeowners, since it was seen as a no-risk system. 10% defaults were expected on securities based on subprime mortgages, which was hysterically low given what happened, but it was assumed that even if one were to default, the actual value of the home would have appreciated to the point that either the homeowner can sell at (at least) make back their original investment, or the bank can foreclose, and then resell the house, and not lose any money. But, since the gains in home value relative to *actual* inflation were much lower than expected, the defaults were much higher, and banks took pretty big loses. This is to say nothing of the default swaps on the corporate loan side, but that's even more complicated.
    • Seldon2639, on 05/05/2008, -3/+3I'm just going to wonder aloud why I'm being dugg down. This isn't trolling, it's a quantitative analysis of the housing market, and how the CPI is related to the current crisis. What did I say wrong?
      • lisaawesome, on 05/05/2008, -0/+6It was just hard to read because it's a massive block of text. That's probably why you got dugg down.
    • NoStoppingUs, on 05/05/2008, -2/+8you type too much.
    • mckinnej, on 05/05/2008, -4/+1Good rundown. Too bad most Digg users don't understand a word you said.
    • mikeyellenlee, on 05/05/2008, -0/+4no one is going to read this.
    • Intamin, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2One plural word: paragraphs.

      "They're just a return key away!"
    • notwizt, on 05/05/2008, -1/+1tl;dr
    • racinfast002, on 05/06/2008, -0/+2dugg down...not reading that much
    • fxu1989, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1Separating text after one or two sentences is easier to read.

      Like this.

  • saltinekracka20, on 05/05/2008, -7/+2This graph is terribly hard to read.
  • banderwocky, on 05/05/2008, -1/+9Wait a second, I don't see nation building.
    • justjoehere, on 05/05/2008, -0/+14It's priceless
    • Seldon2639, on 05/05/2008, -0/+3This graph is of inflation in consumer spending (specifically, a breakdown of the Consumer Price Index), and thus wouldn't include government spending. Other than that, you're right on the money, so to speak
      • breckinshire, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1Speak for yourself, slick, I built three nations last year alone!
  • manstein01, on 05/05/2008, -0/+3The most interesting part is the difference in what Americans would pay if they rented vs what they pay by owning a house. The housing bubble still needs to deflate quite a bit for things to catch up.
    • kineticarl, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1That part of the graph doesn't make sense to me. Is the average American's mortgage monthly payment 4x that of the average rent? And what person do you know that spends only 5.8% of their income on rent? Most pay far more. I wonder what's up with that.
      • doktorrocket, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1I think there are many more home owners than renters, so the *average* american will pay more on a mortgage than on rent. It's sort of an odd artifact of how they broke things up. Imagine if they separated out expenditures on purple cars vs. gray cars. Each car costs the same to run, but since so many more people own gray cars than purple, the expenditures divided across the population are higher for gray cars.

        That, or I've entirely miss-read how the data was gathered and presented, which is equally likely.
        • carbon916, on 05/05/2008, -0/+0I agree, and so if you want to get the average rent OR mortgage cost combined for the average American, you should add up both the "Rent" and "Owner's Equivalent Rent" which totals up to about 30% of spending.
  • Djerrid, on 05/05/2008, -0/+10All the things that have increased by 20% or more:
    Gasoline
    Fuel Oil
    Propane
    Other motor fuel
    Eggs?
    • david76, on 05/05/2008, -0/+12Yes. Eggs. Chickens are corn fed. Corn prices have increased dramatically thanks to tax incentives from the Feds to use corn for ethanol production. So, chickens now compete with cars for corn. Brilliant, right?
      • bcldsm, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1Remember:
        Fuel = energy
        Food = energy
      • Djerrid, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1Then why has chicken only risen by 5.9%? I pointed out the eggs because they were such an anomaly.
    • mozzep, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1agriculture prices are rising because of rising energy prices. It takes a lot of energy to produce food.
  • anagoge, on 05/05/2008, -0/+12You know, whoever does the information design over at NYT, they always manage to do such a great job. They turn a boring old pie chart into something so much more interesting. I remember a few weeks ago when they had one about total box office sales from movies, which was also excellent. Design at its best.
  • dafunkmonster, on 05/05/2008, -2/+2Apparently, 60% of my spending goes toward women's apparel.
    Now where did my credit card go?
  • cyberdork, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2I'm actually very surprised how similar this is to the spending habits of an average European like me (living in NL). Of course there are quite some differences, but not as big as most people think.
    • mckinnej, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2That's because people are people, no matter what side of the water they live on. I've had the pleasure of living in several different countries and have found that people are always the same. The odd thing is when we form groups (aka governments or religions), that's when we become different.
  • Zipko, on 05/05/2008, -2/+3Someone needs to investigate the rising cost of cheese. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.
  • Ikulus, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2How do we know if the spending change is due to increased prices or increased spending in the particular category?

    For example, does the 4.4% increase in fast food indicate that fast food prices went up, or that people are eating more meals at fast food restaurants?
    • mckinnej, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1The NYT mixed things up and I'm sure confused a lot of people. They start off correctly talking about the BLS tracking prices, then they title the chart Average Consumer Spending, which it is not. It's PRICES. It does not indicate whether consumers actually bought more or less of any of that stuff. It's just how much all that stuff costs now, so its really only good for what it is used for, identifying areas under inflationary or deflationary pressure.
      As an example of how it does not equate to your spending think about gasoline. Even though gas shows an increase of 26%, you might be driving less and therefore your total cost is the same or even lower.
  • drplump, on 05/05/2008, -0/+0It would be cool if they had taxes and broke it down so we could see that we spend more money on things that don't even effect us.
  • PwncakesFTW, on 05/05/2008, -2/+21This is my comment (COMMENT).
    • TheKyle27, on 05/05/2008, -3/+12Can I ask you a question? (QUESTION)
      • breckinshire, on 05/05/2008, -1/+7lol (ANNOYING INTERNET ABBREVIATION)
      • Zippo, on 05/05/2008, -1/+7I hope you get an answer (ANSWER)
        • aenima987, on 05/05/2008, -1/+4i don't (OBLIGATORY ASSHAT WHO DISAGREES WITH EVERYBODY)
        • WhatsUpWithJack, on 05/05/2008, -1/+8Never gonna give you up (NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN)
        • diggadigga, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1am I doing this right ? (BANANAS IN PAJAMAS FTMFW)
  • uselessexpert, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1I'm surprise with what my fianceé spends on shoes, that number has not gone up.
    • RoloTomasie, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1...regarding shoes, I can't believe the women's shoes block is only marginally larger than the men's.
  • coffee200am, on 05/05/2008, -1/+1All the oil executives need to be put in prison! (just the American oil execs).....and Hilary too....and her husband...and maybe her daughter for a few months..
  • willk281, on 05/05/2008, -6/+2Dugg for Mrbabyman...lol of course not ***** YOU MRBABYMAN GO TAKE YOUR GATEKEEPING BUTT BUDDIES ELSEWHERE
  • Aerandir, on 05/05/2008, -2/+1LOL at CDs and DVDs: 0.3% combined.
    Torrent Community FTW.
  • Maverick0420, on 05/05/2008, -1/+2was half expecting a huge percentage to be porn
  • DrunkenMick, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1I like how as prices of everything go up, the use of cigarettes goes up as well. Smoke if you got em folks, its gonna be a bumpy ride.
  • detales, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2No figures for either videogames or porn? WHAT A WASTE.
    • bernlin2000, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1Isn't porn under: "Sports Equipment"?
    • Kali075, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1Unfortunately I think they might include Video Games under "Toys"
      and whoever they polled/surveyed/whatever probably didn't admit to the porn
  • tinafey, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1we're heading towards a full-blown cheese emergency!
  • foobarman, on 05/05/2008, -0/+0Does anyone know what type of graph this is called? Any paper/publication about this type of graph? Thanks.
  • ObscuredTruth, on 05/05/2008, -1/+1This graph is completely inaccurate. American taxpayers spend 50-70% of what they make to the government. Then the rest is probalby divided up in a manner similar to what the graph shows. Wake up people!
  • mikebaldwin67, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1Im not sure I need as many categories. Rent, Gas, Beer, Cigarettes, Weed, Food.
  • JK1150, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1what about taxes?
    • Kali075, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1its a graph on spending, not total income
      • rpetty, on 05/06/2008, -0/+1since when are taxes not considered spending? I understand that is not the purpose of the CPI index or this graph. I think it would be interesting to show consumers how much they spend on local, state and federal taxes in comparison to these categories. I think it might open a few eyes.
  • bejitt, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2The graph is called a 'Voronoi Treemap', a variant on the TreeMap with areas calculated using voronoi tesselations. The paper can be found in the University of Konstanz's publications: http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/publikationen/ (2005, published in InfoVis)

    (No affiliation, I just spent some time researching this area)
    • osarhan, on 05/07/2008, -0/+1Thank you , its pretty intersting, thought it looked a bit Voronoi
      Would you have an idea what software they used to create it ?
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