UPDATE: Dec. 5, 7:30 a.m. — Donald Trump on Monday morning said he would nominate retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson as his secretary of housing and urban development. Carson has no previous exper...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/stop-treating-hud-like-a-second-tier-department/
Donald Trump won Tuesday’s election by racking up big margins in counties that are, on average, older, whiter and less-educated than the rest of the U.S. The demographics of Trump Country are s...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/where-trump-got-his-edge/
If there’s one issue that Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on, it’s that America’s infrastructure is in need of an upgrade. Many of the nation’s highways and bridges are deficient;...
You’re reading Back of the Envelope, an experiment that aims to bring shorter, quicker content to FiveThirtyEight. Halloween may be over, but there’s still a zombie among us: the Trans-Pacifi...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/obama-hasnt-given-up-on-the-tpp/
UPDATED: Oct. 18, 2016 Jobs, income and the economy When President Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. was in the midst of the worst recession since before World War II. Now, barring a sudden mel...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/your-debate-briefing-book-the-policies/
“In 2013, everything crumbled all at once,” Makera Meng said. She and her husband ran a business — an international grocery store — in South Portland, Maine, where they also owned a home....
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-so-many-poor-americans-dont-get-help-paying-for-housing/
Steve Williams is dogged — so dogged that he got bit by an actual dog. The dog attack happened while Williams was out doing his job: tracking down renters in the poorest parts of Milwaukee and ...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-we-undercounted-evictions-by-asking-the-wrong-questions/
Twenty years after President Bill Clinton fulfilled his vow to “end welfare as we know it,” it’s fair to say: mission accomplished. The old U.S. welfare system is dead. Whether the system t...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-welfare-dollars-dont-go-directly-to-poor-people-anymore/
When Donald Trump delivered his big economic speech in Detroit earlier this month, free trade — and the harm it has allegedly done to U.S. workers — was at the center of his agenda. And one c...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-critics-of-free-trade-are-talking-china-not-nafta/
For most of the last 35 years, the number of police officers who die on the job in the U.S. declined, but one grim statistic held steady: The most common cause of death was gun homicide. Those nu...
On Wednesday morning, President Obama announced his plans to leave office with 8,400 troops still in Afghanistan, a larger military presence than the 5,500 troops specified by the withdrawal time...
The number of worldwide terrorist attacks declined in 2015 from the previous year, as did the number of related fatalities, according to new data from the Global Terrorism Database. That may come...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/global-terrorism-declined-last-year-but-not-in-the-west/
There were many bits of history on the line in Sunday’s NBA Finals Game 7 — among them, the city of Cleveland’s nearly 52-year-old championship curse (now broken), the all-time rank of the ...
The U.S. Senate will vote Monday on two competing proposals — one from each party — intended to prevent suspected terrorists from buying guns. Though the plans differ substantially, each is b...
The Golden State Warriors didn’t lose very often this year, but when they did, the Dubs tended to bounce back with a vengeance. Following the 15 losses for which we know the next game’s outco...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-warriors-are-especially-hard-to-handle-after-a-loss/
The 2016 presidential race has been filled with excitement and drama. But there’s another layer to American politics that gets less attention: How issues of home, family and wallet intersect wi...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/kitchen-table-politics-the-cost-of-caring-for-kids/
The Federal Reserve is extremely unlikely to raise interest rates at its meeting that concludes today, according to both financial markets and economists. The May jobs report that came out almost...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-fed-is-worried-about-worker-productivity/
When the smoke cleared on Game 5 of the NBA Finals, LeBron James and Kyrie Irving had powered the Cleveland Cavaliers to the seventh-biggest finals upset since 1984, according to FiveThirtyEight�...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lebron-kyrie-and-draymond-all-made-history-in-the-cavs-win/
Welcome to the first installment of “The Consequences,” a series of chats about the issues being debated in this year’s political campaign. A couple of times every month, we’ll gather a g...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-consequences-how-trade-became-a-major-issue-in-2016/
Voters in Switzerland will decide Sunday whether to cut themselves and all their fellow citizens checks. The Swiss are holding the first national referendum on an unconditional basic income, a si...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-swiss-are-about-to-vote-no-on-basic-income/