Google Public Data

Gov. Rick Perry and Jobs

By Matt Stiles | Matt Stiles | Topics: Uncategorized

On the presidential campaign trail, Gov. Rick Perry is touting the Texas’ relatively low unemployment rate. Here’s how the rate has changed during his decade in office. It wasn’t until 2007 that Texas’ jobs picture looked better than the country as a whole: 

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UPDATE: Following a reader’s suggestion, I added Texas’ neighboring states, who also have unemployment rates lower than the nation as a whole: 

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UPDATE: William M. Hartnett just posted his own viz to Twitter:

Texas unemployment rate compared to New York and Massachusetts, famously low-tax, low-regulation states: http://t.co/xgawHJT (via @stiles)

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Greenhouse Gas Emissions

By Matt Stiles | Matt Stiles | Topics: Uncategorized

I love Google’s public data explorer, which has lots of records from around the world and powerful visualization and mapping tools.

Here’s a map of greenhouse gas emissions:

Here’s a map of greenhouse gas emissions per capita:

Double-click to zoom in and see the differences. Notice that Wyoming fights above its weight in terms of the amount of emissions vs. its population. Per-capita analysis often is needed when analyzing data. Otherwise, you just get a population map.