Summary

In this New York Times Article, “Our Broken Economy, in One simple Chart”, David Leonhardt explains how income growth is almost flat for the poor and middle class, but it seems to be skyrocketing for the top 1% of earners. The article is very interesting because Leonhardt not only exposes what is going on at the present moment, but also compares the current situation with the situation in 1980. The changes are shocking. In 1980, the poor and middle class used to see the largest income growth, but 34 years later, in 2014, the largest growth corresponds to the 99.99^th percentile that happens to have a 6% income growth a year. At the moment, the 50^th percentile has an income growth that is below 1%, which is not very promising.

The article is highly productive because it makes the reader reflect about why income distribution has changed drastically in the last four decades.

Graph

How the Graph was Used in this Article

The way the author used the graph in this article could not be better. The graph is a clear visual representation of the point that the author wants to make. By looking at the graph, it is easy to realize that income growth distribution changed drastically. The grey line represents income growth in 1980, and the red line represents income growth in 2014. It is easy to see how the grey line was decreasing, but the red line in increasing. Also, what catches the reader’s attention the most, it is how the red line skyrocketed in the 99.99^th, which represent the very wealthy.

Link

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/opinion/leonhardt-income-inequality.html

As a Computer Science student,  I have to admit that Statistics is highly important in my field. In such a way that some universities offer a joint major that combines both subjects.

In the first month of classes, I discovered that a huge part of the material that we are learning in our statistics class overlaps with the material of Computer Science classes such as Data Structures and Algorithms. As an example, the concept of Venn diagrams is a key concept in the class previously mentioned (Data Structures and Algorithms). In our class, Statistics, we went over it in order to understand the way values are distributed in a clear way. Other concepts, such as “and” or “or” operators, are also present in Computer Science.

My ambition after graduation is to get into the industry of video game programming. In that field, statistics and probability are key. One of the exercises that we are working on in this class is the probabilities of numbers when rolling two dice. I discovered that the probabilities of getting number 2 are six times less that the probability of getting number 7.In game programming, engineers work with random values, that can come from more than one set of values. Thanks to Statistics, I now know that if a random value is coming from two different set of values, as in the case of the two dice, the final results are not going to be equally distributed.

I think that having a strong foundation of Statistics is key in order to be a successful programmer.