Friday, March 22, 2013

Wealth Inequity in America

I'm a big fan of figuring out how to make big, knotty, complex, and messy things more understandable.  The following is not only a terrific example of doing this well, it does such a good job that the viewer may be left a little sickened.

Apparently, a couple of researchers (Dan Ariely and Michael Norton) performed a study in 2011 on wealth inequity in the US.  A fine report with several interesting charts, graphs, and analysis.  And, as you might expect, the report went largely unnoticed by the vast majority of the population - it's no surprise that most people don't invest their spare time reading research studies on economic topics.

Cut to earlier this year (2013):

A YouTube user (Politizane) took the report's core content and converted it into a visualization video.  As of late March 2013, it has over 5 million views.  In other words, a repackaging of the original report's data transformed an old study's findings from gathering dust on a shelf to being a viral video hit (and, hopefully, has resulted in a more educated population).

Nice work.

Take a look (but have a sickness bag close by....  you've been warned).  Amazing....


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