Chart Of The Day

by Patrick Appel

Via Felix Salmon, who puts the bar graph in context:

The baseline here 200% of the poverty level might sound high enough to be comfortable, but it isn’t: we’re talking a total household income of $36,620 for a family of three, or $44,100 for a family of four. ... If the unemployment problem risks becoming politically invisible, then the plight of the working poor was never visible in the first place. 

Megan takes issue with the Y axis of the chart beginning at 25. But the fact that working families below 200 percent of poverty haven't increased all that much in recent years enforces Salmon's point about the invisibility of the working poor.