2011 in 11 graphs

Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog presents the year in graphs.

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Congress is less popular than Paris Hilton

Congress is more unpopular than it’s ever been. This graph, prepared by the office of Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Col.), dramatizes the low esteem the American people have for the legislative branch. And in the months since it was prepared, Gallup’s polling shows that Congress’s approval rating has hit a new low, falling from 11 percent down to 9 percent. Perhaps this next graph helps explain why.

/ Graph: Sen. Michael Bennet

The less-than-do-nothing Congress

Unemployment is high. Growth is low. America is involved in multiple wars. 2011 was one of the hottest years on record. The euro zone is perilously close to collapse. All in all, there’s quite a lot for Congress to do. But they’re not doing it. Data on congressional productivity shows that the first year of the 112th Congress was less productive even than the “do-nothing Congress” that Harry Truman ran against in the 1948 election.

/ Graph: Dylan Matthews; Data: Senate.gov

The GOP's dual-trigger nightmare

Imagine if the Democrats offered Republicans a deficit deal that had more than $3 in tax increases for every $1 in spending cuts, assigned most of those spending cuts to the Pentagon and didn't take a dime from Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare beneficiaries. Republicans would laugh at them. But without quite realizing it, that's the deal Republicans have now offered to the Democrats. In rejecting every bipartisan deal that was put on the table this year, Republicans have ended up facing two triggers. One is an extremely progressive spending trigger worth $1.2 trillion that goes off on January 1, 2013. The other is an extremely progressive tax trigger worth $3.8 trillion that goes off on ... January 1, 2013. If you count reduced interest payments, the two policies alone would reduce future deficits by about $6 trillion. That's far more than anything the supercommittee came close to discussing. It's distributed far more progressively than anything the Democrats have even considered proposing. And all that needs to happen for it to pass is, well, nothing.

/ Graph: Ezra Klein

Chaos in Iowa

It’s going to be Bachmann! No, Perry! Romney! Sorry, I meant Cain. Actually, Gingrich. Or maybe Ron Paul? Usually, we use charts to impose order on data, to show patterns, to make complicated things clear. But this chart, which tracks each candidate’s poll numbers in Iowa since January 2011, shows little but chaos. But insofar as there has been a pattern in the Republican primary this year, it’s been a chaotic one: Whoever is in the lead now won’t be in the lead a few weeks from now. Plus, if you look at the chart for long enough, you can see a sailboat.

/ Graph: Dylan Matthews; Data: Real Clear Politics

The real unemployment rate

An underdiscussed fact about about the labor market right now: as unemployment has been going up, labor force participation has been going down. Way down. So the recent drop in the unemployment rate isn’t as obvious a boon as it might seem. Some of that is simply coming from discouraged workers giving up on finding paid employment anytime soon. If labor-market participation was as high as it was in 2007, unemployment would likely be in the double digits. The flip side of this is that when the job market really does begin to recover, the unemployment rate might actually rise as discouraged workers start returning to the labor force.

/ Graph: Dylan Matthews; Data: Bureau of Labor Statistic

Cuts in government jobs are holding back the recovery

Over the past year, we’ve gained more than 1.7 million public-sector jobs, but lost almost 300,000 public-sector jobs. Which means we not only lost those 300,000 jobs, but the jobs that came from those 300,000 people having jobs. Where before they were spending money at the supermarket and making payments on their homes, now they’ve had to cut back, which has likely cost the economy even more jobs. These cuts in government employment have been one of the major headwinds holding back the recovery.

/ Graph: Ezra Klein; Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Corporate profits up; workers' wages down

Despite the growing threat of contagion from Europe, U.S. corporate profits continued to rebound in 2011, while the outlook for wages and employment still looked grim. Firms have generally remained reluctant to hire, raise wages, or add hours for workers even as their profits have risen. As a result, workers have been squeezed even as other aspects of the economy have recovered. Before 2000, labor was an average of 63.9 cents on every dollar of value added. Now it’s at low of 57.1 cents on every dollar as firms have targeted labor costs.

/ Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

The Euromess in one graph

This is, pretty much, the Euromess in one graph. Before the euro zone, countries like Greece and Germany borrowed money at wildly different rates. After they joined together in the euro zone, they all borrow at the same rates — German rates — which meant the market thought their debt was essentially riskless. Then came the global recession, and the market began to realize that the economic prospects for Greece and Ireland and Portugal and Italy looked quite dim, and it was increasingly hard to see how they could generate the growth necessary to pay back their debts without undertaking crushing austerity programs — austerity programs that would, in turn, hurt their growth prospects, and make it even harder for the countries to recover. That’s the catch-22 Europe is in right now, and it’s the single biggest headwind the global economy faces in 2012. In fact, as the next graph shows, it’s the single biggest headwind our economy faces in 2012.

/ Source: Der Spiegel

The Euromess's potential to become our mess in one graph

This graph shows the tight coupling between industrial order in the United States and the euro zone. The takeaway? They move pretty much as one. That makes sense: aside from the fact that the U.S. and the euro zone do hundreds of billions of dollars of trade with one another each year, they both operate in the same basic global economy. When the U.S. suffered a financial crisis in 2008, it quickly spread to Europe’s shores. Similarly, if the euro zone falls into crisis in 2012, the U.S. is unlikely to be spared.

/ Source: Graph: Tim Duy; Data: Eurostate, Federal Reserve

Carbon emissions keep track with worst-case scenarios

So much for a temporary reprieve from climate change. According to the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, global greenhouse-gas emissions jumped by 6 percent in 2010 — a record one-year increase — reversing the lull in carbon pollution following the financial crisis. That means the world is now keeping pace with the worst-case emissions scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007.

/ Source: Graph: Skeptical Science, Data: IEA

Public remains divided on health care

Despite their best efforts, Republicans and Democrats alike have failed to move public opinion on the health-reform law. Opinion polls find Americans just as split on the law as they were when it passed last March. Both political parties face the same challenge: Most of the health-reform law hasn't come online yet. Aside from a few early-to-implement provisions that rolled out in 2010, the big parts of the law — the health coverage expansion, insurance subsides and end of pre-existing conditions — don’t start until 2014. It's hard to get voters excited or angry about a law that's still largely intangible.

/ Graph: Kaiser Family Foundation

Featured Photo Galleries

A masquerader from the Fantasy carnival band dances on stage on the final day of the carnival at Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain February 21, 2012. Picture taken February 21. REUTERS/Andrea De Silva (TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO - Tags: SOCIETY)

Carnival, Nationals spring training, Australian foreign minister resigns and more in the day in photos

News and feature images from around the world.

Danish artist Michael Elmgreen (L) and Norwegian artist Ingar Dragset (R) pose for pictures with British actress Joanna Lumley (C) as their bronze sculpture entitled 'Powerless Structures, Fig.101' is unveiled on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in central London, on February 23, 2012. The sculpture, which features a boy on a rocking horse, replaces Yinka Shonibare's artwork of Nelson's Ship In A Bottle. AFP PHOTO / JUSTIN TALLIS (Photo credit should read JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

Eye on entertainment

Joanna Lumley, Corbin Bleu, Jennifer Aniston, Katy Perry, Luke James and other celebrities.

Feb. 15, 2012: French bulldog Baby attends the feeding of wild boar piglets at the Lehnitz animal sanctuary outside Berlin, Germany. Six little pigs have found a new friend in a maternal French bulldog named Baby. The Lehnitz animal sanctuary outside Berlin says Baby took straight to the wild boar piglets when they were brought in Saturday, three days old and shivering from cold. Sanctuary worker Norbert Damm said Wednesday as soon as the furry striped piglets were brought in, Baby ran over and started snuggling them and keeping them warm, even though they're already about her size. He says the piglets' mother was likely killed by a hunter and the litter was found abandoned in a forest. The piglets are being bottlefed right now and should be released to an animal sanctuary when they can feed themselves in about three months.

Animal views

A French bulldog adopts wild boar piglets, a fingernail-size chameleon, frill-necked lizards and more.

This undated image released by Julien's Auctions shows a pair of pearl drop earrings worn by Whitney Houston in the movie The Bodyguard,Warner Bros., 1992.Â This item is part of âHollywood Legendsâ auction scheduled to run on Saturday March 31, 2012 through Sunday April 1st at the Julienâs Auctions gallery in Beverly Hills.Â (AP Photo/Julien's Auctions)

Whitney Houston items up for auction

Items that belonged to or were used by the late pop icon will be sold by Julien’s Auctions in March. Here is a look at those items, plus other celebrity items auctioned by Julien&rsquo...

A reveler with the Mystic Stripers tosses trinkets to the crowds gathered on Royal Street in Mobile, Ala., Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012. The pre-Lenten blowout continues along the Gulf Coast culminating in Fat Tuesday celebrations Feb. 21. Tourism leaders estimate more than a million visitors pour into the Mobile area each Mardi Gras season to watch the festivities. (AP Photo/Mobile Register, G.M. Andrews) MAGS OUT; NO SALES

Mardi Gras around the globe

Revelers around the world celebrate Fat Tuesday, the day before the fasting season of Lent begins.

Kennedy Space Center at 50

The Kennedy Space Center is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and the 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s orbital flight.

ATTENTION EDITORS - IMAGE 4 OF 25 FOR PICTURE PACKAGE 'MONGOLIA'S OLYMPIC GYM ' Mongolia's Olympic freestyle 60kg wrestler Mandakhnaran Ganzorig limbers with a partner at a wrestling gym in Ulan Bator, October 27, 2012. While the elite of the sporting world tune up for the London Olympics in world class facilities, other gold medal hopefuls are forced to make do with less salubrious surroundings. In Mongolia, Asian champion Ganzorig trains alongside children playing basketball in an old, tired gym with paint peeling from the walls. Children play on ancient free weight machines, climb ropes and roll around on the floor mimicking their wrestling hero as he warms up for his training session in the corner. Picture taken October 27, 2012 REUTERS/Kieran Doherty (MONGOLIA - Tags: SPORT OLYMPICS)

Olympic dreams, shabby surroundings

While the elite of the sporting world tune up for the London Olympics in world-class facilities, other gold medal hopefuls are forced to make do with less. In Mongolia, Asian champion...

FILE - In this Oct. 13, 2011 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, speaks in Redmond, Wash. To hear some Republican presidential candidates tell it, the president’s pen is a magic wand that can make Obamacare vanish in one day and sweep in cheaper health care, economic growth and lots of jobs in businesses freed from the health care law’s heavy hand. But there is no such fairy dust in Washington. Across the board, the contenders pledge to repeal the overhaul. In doing so, some are more realistic than others about what they can achieve and how fast. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

10 richest U.S. presidents

If Mitt Romney wins the election, it will him the second-wealthiest president in our nation’s history. Here’s a list of the richest presidents, ranked by 24/7 Wall Street...

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2011 in 11 graphs

Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog presents the year in graphs.

Featured Photo Galleries

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