A Data Visualization Newsletter

As more and more Baby Boomers reach retirement age, the American economy is being reshaped on the fly. The ratio of workers to retirees is beginning to drop, threatening the future of programs like Social Security and Medicare. The Washington Post breaks down what this trend means for younger Americans.

A Wall Street Journal investigation shows that telecom companies have left behind thousands of potentially dangerous lead-covered cables under water, in soil, and overhead. And yet the modern companies that inherited these assets — AT&T and Verizon — haven’t meaningfully done anything about it. The article also features a fascinating graphic breaking down all the various mergers that led to AT&T and Verizon’s dominance in the phone industry.

Here’s a fascinating project from Sheldon Studio, all about the diversity and representation in Europe’s street names. Based on 145,000 streets across 30 major cities, their data shows that over 90% of streets that are named after people are still dedicated to white men. Explore the maps to see which cities have done the best job of embracing diversity — and why the vast majority still have a long way to go.

As England’s National Health Service gets set to turn 75, it’s crumbling under the weight of underfunding and a years-long patient backlog. A Bloomberg analysis of NHS data shows that every single one of England’s 533 constituencies is failing to meet even half of eight key indicators regarding health care access that are tracked by the government. A fifth are meeting none.

The shockwaves of the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action are still being felt weeks later. But as this article from The New York Times argues, race-conscious admissions at elite universities affected only a fraction of the population. Improving the quality of education at non-selective colleges and universities — who serve the vast majority of students of color — has the potential to unleash much great economic mobility.