Weekly Viz 2021-12-06

Where Do We See Highest Inflation

This week, I turn to the graphics on The Economist again for some visualization inspiration. Then this article caught my attention. It looks at US inflation by items, and compare that distribution with time in the history when we saw a similar inflation rate. I think it’s an interesting idea to build a similar inflation by item chart with most recent data points. Then I found the 12-month % price change by category data on the U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS site. Though it’s not as granular as the original post, still enough for us to see some insights.

My Visualization

Visualization vise, this week I used a simple bar chart with color coding on the item category.

Please notice that all the visualizations are designed for desktop view, so it is recommended to view them on a desktop device.

Dashboard link

Insights

• Generally speaking, energy items are on the higher end of the price increase – Fuel oil is the item with highest increase of 59%, followed by gasoline and natural gas in the same category;
• Airline fare is the item with lowest price change (and one of the only two items seen a year-over-year price decrease), which is highly likely caused by the pandemic;
• Price change of the most of the service items are below the all items average.

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