Minimum wages and the cost of food in Venezuela

[mercybenzaquen]

Story issue checklist

My pitch was (use the number): #22

• [x] My pitch has been approved (see PITCHING.md)
• [x] My story issue links to my pitch issue
• [x] I have included an update of my visualization/story in a comment
• [x] I have received two comments of peer feedback
• [x] I have received editorial feedback

[mercybenzaquen]

My story changed a lot since I first pitched it. I knew that the subject I chose was a tricky one since the Venezuela's government is not very good storing data. Luckily, CENDA, a Venezuelan non-profit that gathers data about workers' life conditions provided me with the necessary information for this story.

For my first chart I used information of minimum wage and the cost of the basic food basket for the months of Jan to June of 2016. I got this information from the CENDA's website and manually created a dataset.

Venezuela_minimum_wage_vs_food_prices.xlsx

For my second chart I used a dataset with the prices of products of the basic food basket in the year 2015 and 2016. I used this dataset that CENDA sent me: Tabla de los detalles caf junio 2016 -.xlsx This is the clean data: Food_prices.xlsx

[snajmabadi]

I especially love the second graph and how it shows the increase in costs between 2016 and 2015. Maybe you could try sorting the bars from greatest to least or vice versa? I also like how you include the color key in the title of the first graph, though I might consider making the colors a little more different. You also might want to add that the wage/food basket are both on a monthly basis.

[oargueso]

I like the way you color-coded your title, so that it makes it easier to know right away which color stands for what. As of the second, what about trying small multiples for, maybe, each type of food (vegetables and fruit, etc.)?

[honjy]

Wow Mercy I love this story. Why have prices increased by so much? That's totally insane. I love this project and I like your second chart in particular because it's so easy to understand. And your color scheme is great too. No suggestions but I'm curious to find out more about the reasons behind the increase and if anything's being done to help bring prices down.

[mercybenzaquen]

These are my new charts integrating some of my peer's suggestions. I have tried to make them look the same in size so they go well together but I am having trouble doing that. If I set them to the same font sizes they look really different as well.

[mercybenzaquen]

@jsoma Hey Soma :) ! The non-profit organization that sent me the data I used for this project sent me an email today asking to see the results. They were very excited when I asked for the data and told them I was going to use it to create two charts. I think they have never used they data to create visuals. I would love to send them my two charts but just wanted to ask for your feedback before I do. Thank you :)

[jsoma]

Oh boy, I'm really late on this one, but here we go!

FIRST OFF: I really really really really enjoy how well you did both creating a visual hierarchy (bolding some things, etc) as well as using color to link together different parts of the image (matching shades of orange, etc). I love how you contextualized in several different ways without them getting too busy, either!

Line graph

I would give some of the numbers a little bit more space between the numbers themselves and the bars - the ones on the top are pretty solid, but the bottom area graph is probably where the padding is most needed.

Bar graph

You could probably get rid of most of the vertical lines! If you only had them for 0, 500, 1000, etc you'd be able to easily count off from the left, but as it stands now it's a little tougher since there are so many.

As much as I'm against repeating labels, I probably would repeat the percentage at the end of every one of those bars, since by the time I'm at the bottom I forget that it's percentage. I would also get rid of the decimal - the difference between 905 and 905.16 is small enough that you'll still be able to get your point across with a lot less link.

You could also take the "% increase" out of your legend and move it into the first line, making it actually use those words like you did with BsF in the area graph.

Ooooh I see how that you made the orange faded by applying transparency, clever! The only problem is that now you see the lines through everything 😉 - if you have these set up as layers, i'd duplicate the bars layer, make everything white on it, and then move it just below the bars (but above the lines) so the now-white bars will block what's underneath. There's probably a better way using the Pathfinder tool but it's probably too much trouble for now!

I just realized you made a great use of space by putting the labels above the bars instead of next to them!

Percentages could probably be made a little smaller, pushed outside of the bars and then made the same darker color as the product labels. You could also try making them white and keeping them on the inside - but I think smaller is probably good either way. It might also change when you pare down on the grid lines and have them not show up under the bars.

Also you might want to balance the top and the bottom, right now it's 7 and 10 I think!

[playfairbot]

Hi there, I'm the Playfair Bot! Thanks for posting your story issue, but would you mind adding editing the original issue to add the first draft of your image? You have my sincere apologies, but it's easier for dumb robots like me when the comments are only used for updates. Thanks! :pray:

[playfairbot]

Closing since pull request #119 has been accepted