Visualizing 40 years of interest rates

Explore current CD interest rates

Data itself is not (exactly) a financial advisor, but it can help you decide between a variable or fixed rate CD, or CDs with different term lengths. A chart from the Federal Reserve shows the three-month trend of CD interest rates.

Visualizing decades of stock market performance

Stock markets and the indexes that track their biggest companies tend to ebb and flow, with long growth periods punctuated by shorter recessions. Track the 60-year history of one of the most common stock market indexes, the S&P 500, with this data visualization. The chart highlights the long-term durability of markets despite appearance of short-term volatility.

How interest rates affect homebuying

Rising interest rates impact every aspect of buying a home. This five-minute article gives a high-level overview of the relationship between the housing market and interest rates.

Raising interest rates can help control inflation

While controlling a complex and dynamic economy is difficult, interest rates—more specifically, the rate at which banks lend each other money overnight—are a powerful tool. Generally, raising the rate makes purchases more expensive and cools an overheated economy.

See a chart of public trust in the Federal Reserve

An illuminating chart shows the percentage of Americans who trust the current Fed Chair, going back to 2005. See how we went from Alan Greenspan’s 74% trust level to Janet Yellen’s 38%.

A nuanced break down of how tariffs are impacting prices

As tariffs have increased to their highest levels since the 1930s, economists have kept a close eye on retail prices. This chart and accompanying explainer shows correlations between key tariff announcements and news and the costs of roughly 350,000 goods from five major retailers.

30-year fixed mortgage rates have changed significantly over time

In the 1980s, 30-year fixed mortgage rates peaked just under 17%. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they were much lower, hovering around 3%.

Visualizing cause of death over time in America

As people age, their life expectancy decreases, but the timing and speed of this decline have evolved over the years. Check out this chart which shows the shift in various causes of death of Americans over the last few decades. Data from the...

Private credit grew from a $250B asset class in 2010 to around $1.5T in early 2024

That's partly due to the industry's rising interest rates that created more upside for investors. Interest rates have increased in recent years alongside the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes beginning in 2022. Private credit loans typically stretch over multiple years (typically between five and seven years, although term lengths vary).

An updated, comprehensive tracker of global inflation

This tracker provides a visual narrative of inflation rates, central bank policies, consumer price breakouts, and more from nations across the globe.

Bond yields are the returns investors earn from their bond’s interest—and they're a key economic barometer

Bond yields are considered a major indicator of how the US and global economies are doing, and where they’re headed. When bond yields increase, this tends to mean the cost to borrow money is also increasing.

How global conditions have improved over 200 years

In an era of 24-hour news, it can feel as if the world is on a perpetual downward spiral. This set of visualizations zoom out, and show how global living conditions have improved in recent centuries. The percentage of people living in extreme...

Taiwan's economic history, analyzed

See how the global economic power evolved from the colonial period to today, including charts and graphs highlighting China's progress, especially in recent decades.

Charting 4,000 years of human history

Care to hang all of human history on your wall? This data visualization charts 4,000 years of humanity. This "histomap" was originally published in 1931 and sold for $1 per copy of the 5-foot-long chart. It was said to detail the course of...

Visualize the 5,000-year history of consumer credit in one infographic

Consumer loans for agriculture were likely first used around 3500 BCE, but modern consumer credit took many more centuries to be established. England's credit reporting system, for instance, dates back to the early 1800s when a group of English tailors began swapping information about customers who failed to settle their debts.

Explore the rise (and fall) of baby names over time

Baby names popularity and trends in the acclaimed interactive graph of baby name popularity. Watch as baby name trends rise and fall over time.

The role stories play in mass economic trends like bitcoin, crashes

Economics is dominated by numbers, but stories play a huge role in the emotional shifts seen within macroeconomic trends. For example, bitcoin is not just a cost-benefit winner, but a compelling tale of decentralization and independence. This is a 20-minute summary of Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Shiller's "Narrative Economics."

Housing 'starts'— new constructions—signal the health and future of real estate

The Federal Reserve Economic Data, or FRED, tracks monthly “housing starts,” the number of new residential construction projects being built. Some argue this data can serve as an economic barometer.

One theory suggests real estate markets follow a predictable 18-year pattern

The theory dictates that real estate markets tend to experience about 14 years of growth, including a mid-cycle dip, then experience four years of decline. Real estate experts in London discuss the theory in an article.

See silver price rallies over time

Silver prices hit an all-time high in January 2026 at $121.67 per ounce. Silver has experienced several rallies over the past six decades, often driven by macroeconomic stress.

Congress banned banks from paying checking account interest for 80 years

Known as "Regulation Q," the act sought to stop bank competition for customers involving increasing interest rates in the 1930s. This competition led banks to make reckless investment decisions to pay higher interest rates. During the ban, banks competed by focusing on convenience (ATMs, branches), relying on fees, and building relationships.

Visualize government spending with USAFacts

This resource turns complex federal budget data into clear charts and summaries, letting users explore how much the government spends; where the money goes; and how revenue, deficits, and debt change over time.

Oil prices have been volatile for decades

This explainer shows oil’s rollercoaster: OPEC-led embargoes in the 1970s, shale surges in the 2000s, and the US flip to becoming a net oil exporter in 2020.

US depression rates at historic high among adults

More than 18% of US adults reported that they currently have or are being treated for depression in both 2024 and 2025. In the 2025 survey, more than 11,000 adults were surveyed. The numbers have ticked upward since 2015—by about 8 percentage points—with most of the increase occurring from the 2020 pandemic onward.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

The college degrees with the highest unemployment rates, visualized

Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows which college degrees have had the highest unemployment rates in the US as of May 2025. Degrees in anthropology, physics, and computer engineering ranked high on the list.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

See the evolution of Ebola vaccine and treatment development.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.