Just before it went bankrupt the first time, Hostess embarked on a depressing attempt to extend the shelf life of Wonder Bread to a week. It failed, just as the whole-grain trend was passing the company by. Read more
Across the city, most public school children are eligible for free or reduced lunches—an 85 percent average across the city, showing distinct geographical patterns, and 30 percent higher than the state average. The highest eligibility? It can't get any higher than in East Saint Louis. Read more
One semi-silver lining for the Great Recession, as it's been for most American recessions in recent years, is that people obtain more education (at, on average, a modest increase in lifetime earnings). But the benefit to the economy doesn't compare to what was lost. Read more
At the end of Prohibition, popular support for repeal was high, bringing out tens, even hundreds of thousands of people for "We Want Beer" parades. But Wall Street bankers also gave the effort a critical boost, envisioning lower taxes and closed budget deficits. Read more
In 2011, Chicagoans spent $600 million playing the state lottery, out of $2.3 billion statewide. Here's a map that shows which areas of the city are the biggest spenders. Read more
Even in the era of No Child Left Behind, it's surprisingly hard to get good data on school truancy across the country. To the extent that it exists, other urban districts seem to share our problems. Read more
The GOP's skepticism of and opposition to science and data in all its forms isn't just killing them through outliers like Todd Akin—it's also a critical issue in current and future GOTV efforts. Read more
Having scarce resources means that even the smallest decisions have major ramifications. How does that effect decision-making? Let's play the Feud (or Angry Birds) to find out. Read more
The GOP is having trouble breaking 30 percent of the vote in the nation's major cities (over 500,000), costing it millions of votes in an increasingly urban nation. It hasn't always been this way. Read more
How much should current generations value future generations? There's math for that, and depending on how you calculate it, it can mean differences in billions of dollars in privatization deals. Read more
