The U.S. Unemployment Rate

A time series is a line graph with time along the horizontal axis. Here the vertical axis is the share of adults who want a job and are looking for one but cannot find one. Each year is a point, and the points are joined.

The shape does the work that a column of numbers cannot. The peaks near ten per cent in the early 1980s and again in 2010 stand out at once, as does the long fall through the 1990s and the sharp climb in the recession of 2008 and 2009. The slider reads the series at any year, and the panel gives the highest and lowest years for comparison.