How Common Are You? Visualizing US Census Data

How Common Are You?
What is this?
It's a visualization of US census data!
Why should I care?
It might be fun to play around with. Admittedly it will be more interesting if you live in the US. You could find out:
  • How common you are. In other words, how many people share your characteristics
  • How common you would be if you were slightly different
  • How common various combinations of characteristics are
How does it work?
When you click on the characteristics in the form below, the visualization and statistical result will update automatically. The size of each circle is proportional to the size of one group. The data is from the 2017 census (2018 data out soon)
What was this inspired by?
This was inspired by an episode of NPR's Planet Money called "The Modal American". In fact it uses almost the same data and methodology as they describe in their write up
Show me the gory data details!
A writeup with all the gory details is coming. For now, here's a link if you'd like to get the data yourself

Age
Race
Sex
Marital Status
Education
Neighborhood Type
Total Income From All Sources During Last 12 Months
Employment During Last 12 Months

Written on September 20, 2020