ECO-175 Principles of Macroeconomics
Memo #2: Inequality at the County Level
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to continue building your data visualization skills while further exploring
the relationship between inequality and social dysfunction. It is due by 11:59pm next Friday, Nov. 10th by
11:59pm.
Directions
Your task is to use data from www.countyhealthrankings.org/ to talk about income inequality and health.
The data can be downloaded directly here. In effect, you are going to test Wilkinson’s thesis using
county-level data within a state of your choosing. We will measure income inequality using the same metric
that Pickett and Wilkinson use: the income of the top 20% divided by the incomes of bottom 20% (the
so-called 80/20 ratio that we discussed in class - this variable is in the data file). This ratio tells you how
many dollars the top income quintile has to every dollar the bottom quintile has within each county.
Using these data, I want you to replicate at least two of the graphics that Wilkinson describes in his Ted
talk, and then create two additional graphics. One of those graphics should illustrate the degree of income
inequality in your state, by county. Finally, provide a brief 250 word memo that explains your results. What
did you find? Did your results affirm Pickett and Wilkinson or not? What do these results indicate about
your state?
Before you begin, please watch this brief video to help get you started.
Prompt
The Mayor has asked for a follow up to your first memorandum. In it, she asks you to summarize your
results from memo 1 in a brief background section, but the bulk of this memo should explore income
inequality across the state but paying particular attention to your county’s position in this analysis [hint: on
all graphics, highlight the bar or point that represents your county.] The memo should be no more than
500 words but should clearly address the questions:
• Relatively speaking, how does your county compare to the rest of the counties in the state on the
80/20 measure?
• What social problems, if any, seem to be highly correlated to the 80/20 measure at the county level?
Formatting
A memo is an important document that is used within organizations all around the globe. These doc
uments are short, technical documents, that convey information to others in the organization to in
form/contextualize/direct policy development. Memos also rely heavily on clear communication through
tables and figures. These are crucial components to effectively written technical documents. To be clear,
all of of your tables and figures must be:
• Built by you
• Named appropriately (i.e “Figure 1: GDP per capita, Cedar Rapids, IA”)
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• Labeled axes
• Use color effectively (perhaps call out your MSA specifically)
• Be appropriate for the type of data you are trying to visualize (i.e. line graphs, scatter plots with trend
lines, bar charts, etc.).
In general, the memo will balance text and white space to maximize reader engagement (i.e. no one wants
to read a wall of text). It will use headings and subheadings to effectively direct your reader’s attention and
it will utilize footnotes to provide ancillary context/information/access to data sources and/or supplemental
information of interest. All figures and tables will be incorporated effectively into the text. Do not submit
separate files for the memo and the figures/tables.
Technical Writing
Technical writing should be direct and use active voice. There are a number of resources on-line to help
you learn the difference between active and passive voice. Use them - even if you think you already
know the difference.
Paragraph structure is critical to clear communicative prose. Again, there are a lot of resources on-line but
pay particular attention to quality topic sentences and useful transitions from one idea to the next. Use
evidence to support your claims (i.e. topic sentences).
I fully encourage you to utilize Chat-GPT and other LLMs to explore things like active vs. passive
voice, paragraph structure, sentence structure, etc. For example, if you go to ChatGPT and ask it to do the
following: “What is the difference between active voice and passive voice?” ChatGPT is great at things like
this. It is terrible at collecting data for you (it will just make it up) and it is a liar liar pants on fire when it
comes to asking it for articles or books on a given subject. So, keep your use of ChatGPT to the things it
is good at: helping you think through new ideas and concepts. To be clear, that means you must do all
of the writing but you can (and should!) use ChatGPT as an assistant to help you think through
concepts, topics, etc.
Submission
The memo is due Nov. 10th by 11:59pm via Google Classroom. Each group will submit a single memo.
That submission must be a pdf.
Grade
This assignment will be graded out of 100 points, broken into three criteria:
• Writing Quality (40%)
• Data Visualization (40%)
• Memo Format (20%)
I expect you all to work on the project. I reserve the right to give you a zero on the assignment if, based on
evidence, I believe you did not contribute to the work. Be a good team member here people.