Unit 1 : Lesson 1: This apartment is too small!

Document literacy: Reading a graph

Who owns their home in the United States?

A graph is a way of displaying information using a kind of picture or illustration. A graph allows the reader to understand a good deal of information quickly, to make comparisons, and to come to conclusions about information.

There are many kinds of graphs. One type is a circle graph. A circle graph uses parts of a circle cut into segments (like a pie) to show parts of a whole (or 100 percent). Below is an example of a circle graph. Information about home buyers at three different income levels is placed in a column titled “percent of first-time buyers.” Information about the percentage of buyers at each income level is placed in a column titled “income.”

Look at the circle graph below. It shows how many households with an income of $50,000 a year or less bought a home in the U.S. for the first time. A household may include one person with one income or several persons who put their incomes together to help pay for a house.

One shaded segment of the circle graph indicates that 17 percent (17 out of every 100) of those who bought a house for the first time had an income of under $30,000 a year. Another shaded section shows that an additional 20 percent of those buying a home had an income of between $30,000 and $40,000. The graph also shows that 19 percent of households making $41,000 to $50,000 were first-time home buyers. All together 56 percent of those buying a home for the first time make $50,000 or less a year.

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