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Chart of the day
America's debt is back near its World War II peak
Federal debt held by the public reached about 98% of U.S. GDP in 2025 — close to the record 106% set in 1946, after falling as low as 22% in 1974.
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Society
Alone time is rising — fastest for the young
Americans spent 6.82 waking hours a day alone in 2025, up from 5.61 in 2010. Teenagers now spend 43% more time alone than they did in 2010, and 25–34-year-olds 45% more — while time with friends has been cut in half.
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Society
In 1970 there were 59 women in higher education for every 100 men. Now there are 112.
Worldwide, higher education went from strongly male to majority female, passing equal numbers in 2001. Women now outnumber men in 132 of the 155 countries and territories with recent data — but the exceptions are two very different stories.
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Economy
America's debt is back near its World War II peak
Federal debt held by the public reached about 98% of U.S. GDP in 2025 — close to the record 106% set in 1946, after falling as low as 22% in 1974.
Mara Ellison
Health
There is no country on earth where men outlive women
Each dot is one of 193 sovereign states or 24 territories with data. Every single one of the 217 sits above the line where the two sexes would live equally long — but the gap runs from five months in Togo to more than ten years in Russia.
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Economy
The richest 1% now own almost as much as the bottom 90% combined
In 1989 the wealthiest 1% of American households held 22.8% of all net worth and the bottom 90% held 39.2% — a gap of 16 percentage points. That gap has almost closed: 31.6% against 32.1%.
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Technology
19 years of iPhone updates
How long every iPhone generation has been supported, from the original iPhone to the iPhone 17.
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Economy
America's share of the world economy has shrunk. So has Japan's — all the way back.
In 1960 the United States produced 40% of everything the world made; today it is 26%. China went from 3.6% in 2000 to 16.5%. Japan climbed to 18.2% by 1994 and then fell back to 3.7% — almost exactly where it started.
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Society
The number of migrants has doubled. Their share of humanity has barely moved.
There were 154 million people living outside their country of birth in 1990. By 2024 there were 303 million — almost exactly double. But because the world's population grew too, the share living abroad rose only from 2.88% to 3.73%.
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Economy
Your great-great-great-grandparents worked twice the hours you do
Across the 14 rich countries with records back to 1870, the median worker put in 3,138 hours a year. Today it is 1,561 — almost exactly half. Every one of them now works less than a 40-hour week all year would imply.
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Health
There is no country on earth where men outlive women
Each dot is one of 193 sovereign states or 24 territories with data. Every single one of the 217 sits above the line where the two sexes would live equally long — but the gap runs from five months in Togo to more than ten years in Russia.
Chartive Editorial
Technology
Most of what humanity has ever put into space went up in the last six years
24,865 objects have been launched into orbit since Sputnik in 1957. Nearly two thirds of them went up after 2019, and 2025 alone accounted for 4,510 — more than the entire first 36 years of spaceflight combined.
Chartive Editorial
Climate
The Arctic has lost a third of its summer sea ice
At its yearly minimum in 1979, Arctic sea ice covered 7.1 million square kilometres. In 2025 it was 4.7 — a fall of 33%, and a loss roughly the area of Greenland.
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Health
The world quit smoking faster than almost anyone expected — but not evenly
The share of adults using tobacco fell from 34.8% in 2000 to 20.3% in 2024 — a drop of 42% in a single generation. India more than halved, Norway and Britain cut theirs by two thirds, while France barely moved and smoking rose in Egypt and Lebanon.
Chartive Editorial
Economy
One in six private-sector workers was in a union. Now it is one in seventeen.
In 1983, 16.8% of American private-sector workers belonged to a union. By 2025 that had fallen to 5.9% — the lowest on record — while the rate among government workers barely moved.
Chartive Editorial
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