2025-12-30 22:51:51
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High income households in America capture a large share of the nation’s earnings, and this gulf has widened over time.
In 2024, the top 20%—with an average household income of $316,100—took home 52.2% of all national income, up 8.7 percentage points from 1974. Meanwhile, the bottom 20% received just 3.1%, further shrinking over the period.
This graphic shows U.S. household income distribution in 2024, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Below, we show how household income is divided across different income brackets:
| Income Level | Average Household Income (2024) |
Share of Household Income 2024 |
Share of Household Income 1974 |
Change in Share 1974-2024 (p.p.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bottom 20% | $18,460 | 3.1% | 4.3% | -1.2 |
| Second 20% | $49,380 | 8.2% | 10.6% | -2.4 |
| Middle 20% | $84,390 | 13.9% | 17.0% | -3.1 |
| Fourth 20% | $136,800 | 22.6% | 24.6% | -2.0 |
| Top 20% | $316,100 | 52.2% | 43.5% | +8.7 |
| Top 5% | $560,000 | 23.1% | 16.5% | +6.6 |
In 2024, the bottom fifth of U.S. earners averaged $18,460 in household income. While small, their share of total national income has fallen sharply, declining by about 28% since 1974.
Moreover, this group includes workers earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, as well as the roughly 760,000 workers who earn below this level. In particular, younger workers make up a large portion of this bracket, with 43% of those earning minimum wage or less being 25 years old or younger.
As we can see, the middle fifth of earners received 13.9% of U.S. household income in 2024, down from 17% in 1974. With an average household income of $84,390, this bracket largely reflects median-wage workers, spanning occupations such as civil engineers, computer programmers, and clinical psychologists.
On the other hand, the top 5% of earners, averaging $560,000 in income has seen it share expand by 6.6 percentage points. Moreover, it is the only income bracket, along with the top 20%, to see its share of national income grow compared to 1974.
To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on real wage growth by state.
2025-12-30 20:52:25
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Oil remains one of the most strategically important resources in the global economy. It powers transportation systems, underpins industrial activity, and continues to shape geopolitics and trade flows. While renewable energy is growing, oil still plays a dominant role in meeting global energy needs.
This visualization ranks countries by the size of their proven oil reserves at the end of 2024. The data for this graphic comes from OPEC’s Annual Statistical Bulletin 2025. Figures represent proven oil reserves as of year-end 2024 and are measured in billions of barrels. The data includes conventional crude oil as well as oil sands.
Global oil reserves are highly concentrated.
Venezuela ranks first with an estimated 303 billion barrels of oil reserves. However, turning this vast resource base into economic and geopolitical power has proven difficult, as ongoing U.S. sanctions and the recent seizure of Venezuelan oil shipments under the Trump administration continue to limit the Maduro government’s ability to export crude and fully monetize its reserves.
Saudi Arabia follows the South American country with 267 billion barrels. Iran, Canada, and Iraq round out the top five.
| Rank | Country | 2024 (Billion Barrels) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
 Venezuela |
303 |
| 2 |
 Saudi Arabia |
267 |
| 3 |
 Iran |
209 |
| 4 |
 Canada |
163 |
| 5 |
 Iraq |
145 |
| 6 |
 Kuwait |
102 |
| 7 |
 Russia |
80 |
| 8 |
 Libya |
48 |
| 9 |
 United States |
45 |
| 10 |
 Nigeria |
37 |
| 11 |
 Kazakhstan |
30 |
| 12 |
 China |
28 |
| 13 |
 Qatar |
25 |
| 14 |
 Brazil |
16 |
| 15 |
 Algeria |
12 |
| 16 |
 Azerbaijan |
7 |
| 17 |
 Norway |
7 |
| 18 |
 Mexico |
5 |
| 19 |
 Sudan |
5 |
| 20 |
 India |
5 |
| 21 |
 Oman |
5 |
| 22 |
 Vietnam |
4 |
| 23 |
 Egypt |
3 |
| 24 |
 Argentina |
3 |
| 25 |
 Malaysia |
3 |
| 26 |
 Angola |
3 |
| 27 |
 Indonesia |
2 |
| 28 |
 Colombia |
2 |
| 29 |
 Gabon |
2 |
| 30 |
 Congo |
2 |
| 31 |
 Australia |
2 |
| 32 |
 United Kingdom |
2 |
| 33 |
 Brunei |
1 |
| 34 |
 Equatorial Guinea |
1.1 |
| 35 |
 Turkmenistan |
0.6 |
| 36 |
 Uzbekistan |
0.594 |
| 37 |
 Ukraine |
0.395 |
| 38 |
 Denmark |
0.365 |
| 39 |
 Belarus |
0.198 |
| 40 |
 Chile |
0.15 |
Many of the world’s largest oil reserves are held by OPEC members, particularly in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates anchor the region’s dominance.
These countries benefit from low extraction costs and large, easily accessible reserves. As a result, Middle Eastern producers are expected to remain critical suppliers even as global demand growth slows.
Canada stands out among non-OPEC countries, ranking fourth globally with 163 billion barrels of reserves. The majority of Canada’s reserves come from oil sands, which are more expensive and carbon-intensive to extract. Russia and the United States also rank among the top 10.
Taken together, the data highlights how unevenly oil resources are distributed and why oil-rich nations continue to have significant economic and geopolitical power.
If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Charted: Global Grid Investment by Country (2020–2027F) on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.
2025-12-30 02:42:40
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Global trade today spans two very different categories: physical goods such as machinery, vehicles, and manufactured products, and digital services like software, cloud computing, and online platforms.
This infographic breaks down the world’s top 20 exporters of physical goods and digital services in 2024, based on data from the World Trade Organization.
Goods trade remains the backbone of global commerce. In 2024, countries exported a combined $23.8 trillion worth of physical goods, driven largely by manufacturing powerhouses.
The table below ranks the top 20 exporters of physical goods worldwide:
| Rank | Country | Goods Exports in 2024 (USD, billions) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
China |
$3,577 |
| 2 |
U.S. |
$2,065 |
| 3 |
 Germany |
$1,682 |
| 4 |
 Netherlands |
$921 |
| 5 |
 Japan |
$707 |
| 6 |
 South Korea |
$684 |
| 7 |
 Italy |
$674 |
| 8 |
 Hong Kong |
$646 |
| 9 |
 France |
$639 |
| 10 |
Mexico |
$617 |
| 11 |
 UAE |
$604 |
| 12 |
Canada |
$569 |
| 13 |
 Belgium |
$536 |
| 14 |
UK |
$513 |
| 15 |
 Singapore |
$506 |
| 16 |
 Taiwan |
$474 |
| 17 |
 Switzerland |
$447 |
| 18 |
India |
$443 |
| 19 |
Russia |
$433 |
| 20 |
 Spain |
$424 |
China sits firmly at the top, exporting around $3.6 trillion in goods—more than the United States and Germany combined. The U.S. follows with $2.1 trillion, while Germany ranks third with nearly $1.7 trillion, reflecting its strong automotive and industrial base.
Other major goods exporters include the Netherlands, Japan, Italy, France, South Korea, and several European economies. Mexico and Canada also rank among the largest goods exporters globally, with the majority of their exports going to the United States.
While smaller in total value, digital exports are growing rapidly and reshaping global trade patterns. In 2024, digital services exports reached $4.8 trillion worldwide.
The table below shows the top 20 exporters of digital services:
| Rank | Country | Digital Exports in 2024 (USD, billions) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
U.S. |
$741 |
| 2 |
UK |
$488 |
| 3 |
 Ireland |
$425 |
| 4 |
Germany |
$280 |
| 5 |
India |
$276 |
| 6 |
China |
$221 |
| 7 |
Singapore |
$220 |
| 8 |
Netherlands |
$205 |
| 9 |
France |
$204 |
| 10 |
 Luxembourg |
$140 |
| 11 |
Switzerland |
$122 |
| 12 |
Japan |
$119 |
| 13 |
Belgium |
$89 |
| 14 |
Canada |
$84 |
| 15 |
 Sweden |
$82 |
| 16 |
Spain |
$81 |
| 17 |
South Korea |
$68 |
| 18 |
 Israel |
$66 |
| 19 |
Italy |
$65 |
| 20 |
 Poland |
$54 |
The United States leads by a wide margin, exporting $741 billion in digital services, supported by its dominance in software, cloud infrastructure, and digital platforms. The U.S. is also the largest importer of digital services globally.
The U.K. comes second with $488 billion in digital exports, a significant jump from its 13th spot in goods exports. Ireland follows with $425 billion, up 24% from 2023 to 2024.
Similar to its standing in goods exports, Germany ranks highly in the digital category, with $280 billion worth of digital services exported in 2024. Meanwhile, India’s strong showing reflects its growing role as a global hub for IT and business services, with digital exports up 10% from 2023 levels.
Several smaller economies, including Switzerland, Singapore, and Luxembourg, rank disproportionately high in digital exports, benefiting from financial services and intellectual property flows.
Goods exporters tend to rely on scale, capital-intensive industries, and physical infrastructure. Digital exporters, by contrast, often benefit from human capital and intellectual property, allowing smaller countries to compete globally without massive manufacturing bases.
As the global economy continues to digitalize, the balance between goods and digital trade is likely to change, reshaping how countries generate export growth and economic influence.
If you enjoyed today’s post, explore more global trade and economy insights on Voronoi, including The Global Export Power Shift.
2025-12-30 01:37:47
Global risk is entering a new phase. From Trump-era policy shifts and geopolitical tension to financial fraud, life sciences disruption, and record-breaking extreme weather, the landscape in 2025 is more volatile and interconnected than ever.
Throughout 2025, we partnered with Inigo to map these pressures across key themes, including politics, markets, and climate.
Below is a curated set of 10 visuals, grouped into five themes, with links to view each graphic in full, illustrating how data-driven storytelling can bring clarity to today’s risk landscape.
Executive orders signed in the first 100 days reveal how aggressively different presidents have used unilateral power, with Trump ranked at the top of the modern pack at 143 orders in his first 100 days of this term. Since then, he has brought his total to about 220 executive orders as of December 2025, far eclipsing recent presidents over a similar period.
Inflation remains near 3% year-over-year, but proposed universal tariffs and higher levies on Chinese imports have reopened debate over whether trade policy could reignite price pressures.
The global political map shows a patchwork of democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian governments, with a large share of the world’s population living under non-democratic systems. This distribution shapes everything from policy predictability and the rule of law to sovereign-risk profiles.
Ukraine’s estimated reconstruction bill is spread across housing, transport, energy, industry, and agriculture, illustrating the breadth of damage from the war. The sector breakdown highlights that rebuilding will require decades of capital, coordination, and political risk management.
The most frequently reported financial crimes in the U.S.—from check fraud and purposeless transactions to suspicious transfers and identity theft—reveal where everyday vulnerabilities are most exposed. These patterns help risk teams focus controls and monitoring on the channels criminals exploit at scale.
AI-powered scams, deepfakes, instant payments, and synthetic identities are among six trends pushing fraud into a new, more complex phase. The graphic shows how emerging technology is lowering the cost of sophisticated attacks and shifting liability across banks, platforms, and end users.
Record-breaking temperatures in 2024 popped up across a wide range of U.S. cities, not just traditional heat hotspots. The pattern underscores mounting stress on public health, infrastructure, and power grids as extreme heat becomes more frequent and widespread.
A relatively small number of mega-wildfires account for a disproportionate share of insured and economic losses in the United States. These outsized events raise hard questions about pricing, capacity, and long-term insurability at the wildland-urban interface.
Revenue across the roughly $5.6 trillion pharma ecosystem is heavily concentrated among a small group of global giants and blockbuster therapy areas. The landscape reflects how aging populations, chronic disease, and medical innovation are reshaping both growth prospects and risk exposures.
GLP-1s and related treatments have rapidly built a $58 billion weight-loss drug market, transforming expectations around obesity and metabolic disease. The surge in demand hints at far-reaching implications for healthcare costs, longevity, food and beverage demand, and life & health insurance.
From Trump-era policy shifts and geopolitical shocks to fraud, pharma breakthroughs, and extreme weather, today’s threats are deeply interconnected. Navigating them demands smarter data, flexible capital, and a holistic view of how risk propagates across systems.
From geopolitical shocks to climate extremes, Inigo helps turn uncertainty into clarity.
2025-12-29 23:34:42
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Investment has long been a driving force behind U.S. economic growth, but the sectors attracting the most capital have changed with each era. From agriculture and electrification in the mid-20th century to telecommunications, real estate, and now digital infrastructure, investment trends reflect broader shifts in technology, consumer demand, and policy.
This visualization shows the top five U.S. industries by share of total investment at key historical peaks, spanning 1949 to 2025. The data for this visualization comes from Vanguard, using calculations based on Bureau of Economic Analysis data as of October 31, 2025. The figures exclude residential investment.
In 1949, U.S. investment was concentrated in industries that supported a rapidly expanding, industrializing economy.
Farming led with a 12% share of total investment, reflecting the sector’s central role in employment and production. Electric power and railroads followed closely, underscoring the importance of nationwide infrastructure as the U.S. rebuilt and modernized after World War II. Telecommunications and oil and gas rounded out the top five.
| Era | Rank | Industry | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1949 | 1 | Farming | 12% |
| 2 | Electric power | 7% | |
| 3 | Railroads | 6% | |
| 4 | Telecommunications | 6% | |
| 5 | Oil and gas | 5% | |
| 1982 | 1 | Oil and gas | 11% |
| 2 | Telecommunications | 8% | |
| 3 | Real estate | 6% | |
| 4 | Electric power | 5% | |
| 5 | Banking | 4% | |
| 2000 | 1 | Telecommunications | 11% |
| 2 | Real estate | 7% | |
| 3 | Computers and electronics | 6% | |
| 4 | Banking | 6% | |
| 5 | Electric power | 4% | |
| 2025 | 1 | Information and data processing | 7% |
| 2 | Electric power | 6% | |
| 3 | Chemical products | 5% | |
| 4 | Real estate | 5% | |
| 5 | Miscellaneous | 5% |
By 1982, investment leadership had shifted toward oil and gas, which accounted for 11% of total investment. Telecommunications and real estate also gained prominence, alongside banking and electric power.
In 2000, at the height of the dot-com era, telecommunications topped the list, while computers and electronics emerged as a major investment destination. Real estate and banking also featured prominently.
Today, information and data processing leads U.S. investment with a 7% share—making it the top industry, but with far less dominance than historical leaders. Electric power, chemical products, and real estate follow closely, each capturing around 5–6% of total investment.
This lower concentration suggests a more diversified investment landscape, where capital is spread across a wider range of industries rather than clustered in a single dominant sector.
If you enjoyed today’s post, check out America’s $38 Trillion Mountain of Debt on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.
2025-12-29 21:12:24
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Each year, new single-family homes continue to shrink further.
With the exception of 2022 and 2023, the average square footage of new homes has declined since 2015. In contrast, home prices have jumped 46% over the decade, averaging $514,000 in 2024 due to strong housing demand.
This graphic shows the typical size versus the average cost of a new home since 2015, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau via Fixr.
Below, we compare the average square footage of a single-family home in America to sales prices in the last decade:
| Year | Average Sales Price of a New Home | Average Square Feet |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $353,000 | 2,687 |
| 2016 | $361,000 | 2,640 |
| 2017 | $385,000 | 2,631 |
| 2018 | $385,000 | 2,588 |
| 2019 | $384,000 | 2,509 |
| 2020 | $392,000 | 2,480 |
| 2021 | $458,000 | 2,480 |
| 2022 | $521,000 | 2,509 |
| 2023 | $514,000 | 2,485 |
| 2024 | $514,000 | 2,364 |
Since 2015, the average home size has shrunk by 323 square feet, with even sharper decreases in the South, at 374 square feet.
Meanwhile, prices are $161,000 higher than 10 years ago. Even though average 30-year fixed mortgage rates sit around 6.5–7%—up from 2.7% in 2020—prices remain elevated.
Along with a higher cost of capital, the prices of land, labor, and raw materials have increased meaningfully, further driving up costs. Overall, construction costs account for almost two-thirds of the sales price.
More recent data shows that new-home buyers are at record lows in America, representing just 21% of the total market. Meanwhile, the average age of first-time buyers is at an all-time high of 40. For perspective, first-time homebuyers have made up 38% of all buyers, on average, for about four decades.
To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on rent and home price changes across major global cities since 2015.
