No Jobs, No Problem!

For the Chapter 2 project, we chose to look at the unemployment rates in Michigan over the
last 50 months. These rates, ranging from July 2014-August 2018, were obtained from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics
(​https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST260000000000003?amp%253bdata_tool=XGtable&output_view=data&i
nclude_graphs=true​).

Stem-And-Leaf Plot
4|134444566677777778899999999
5|0000111122356789
6|02468
7|02
​**Key: 4 | 1 represents 4.1 %

This graph shows that a majority of the percentages of the unemployment rates in Michigan are in the
4 range. Over half of the data is in the 4% range. Next in line would be in the 5 range, which is about
half the amount of the 4 range. This graph does a good job of demonstrating the distributions of the
percentages and what range most fall in.

Frequency Table
Class Boundaries Frequency Midpoint Relative Cumulative
Frequency Frequency

4-4.5 6 4.25 6/50= .12 6

4.5-5 21 4.75 21/50= .42 27

5-5.5 11 5.25 11/50= .22 38

5.5-6 5 5.75 5/50= .1 43

6-6.5 3 6.25 3/50= .06 46

6.5-7 2 6.75 2/50= .04 48

7-7.5 2 7.25 2/50= .04 50

Because Google Sheets made a histogram for us, our class boundaries were already
determined. It gave it decimal intervals to start with. Because of this, it did not make sense to have
class limits, because the boundaries were predetermined and they were already set to amounts of .5.
We made our frequency table based off of the boundaries they gave us. The frequency table shows
that the most common unemployment rate was between 4.5-5. This accounted for 42% of the study.
The histogram shows that again, the overwhelming majority of the study fell between 4.5-5. From
there, it appears that the data tapers off. The shape of this graph is skew right, because it decreases
as you move to the right. This histogram shows that the high rates, such as 6.5-7.5, are less
common. This is a good thing, because it shows high rates of unemployment did not happen all that
often, except in the summer of 2014 (July 2014).

This graph was unable to be made into a true histogram, because Google Sheets does not
provide the option for a relative frequency histogram. Just like the other histogram, this one shows
that a majority of the rates fell between 4.5-5.5. In fact, 4.5-5 provided 42% of the data, 20% more
than the next highest amount, 22%.
Because Google Sheets would not let us create a relative history frequency table, we had to instead
create a bar graph and treat it as a relative frequency histogram. Even though the bars don’t touch
like a histogram should, it still shows the percentages of each rate.

This circle graph does a great job of showing the distribution of percentages. As you can see from the
graph, the biggest chunk of data was the percentage of 4.9 and it took up 16% of the circle. The next
in line was the percentage of 4.7 at 14%. The smallest chunks of the data were in the 7%-5.5%, each
taking up only 2% of the circle.
This ogive shows the frequency of each percentage of unemployment rate cumulatively as the rate increases.
The cumulative frequency increased the most, or the steepest, between 4.5% and 5%. It increased the least
between 7% and 7.5%. We created this graph by creating a chart of the class boundaries and cumulative
frequencies. We then highlighted the information and selected a line graph.

This graph does a great job of showing how the unemployment rate changed over time. I think this graph is
quite beneficial because you are able to see that the rate decreased over time. Being that our topic was from a
time range of July 2014 to August 2018, a Times Series graph was very fitting for our data.

In conclusion, through this project, we found that the unemployment rate has decreased over the years, being
the lowest of the entire study in August of 2018. Starting at 7.2% in July 2014, Michigan has come a very long
ways in decreasing their unemployment rate to 4.1% in August 2018. This is a good thing, meaning that the
unemployment rate has greatly descended over time.