Some of our daily housing videos show a panel: one measure, such as average weekly pay, set out for five states and the United States on a single chart. A panel is quick to read once you know three rules: the order is fixed, every row comes from the same release, and the national line is the publisher's own figure.
The order never changes
The rows always run in the same order: Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas, then the United States below a thin dividing line. The states are in alphabetical order, and that order does not move when the figures do. A row's position says nothing about its value. The panel is a list, not a ranking.
On some days one state is highlighted. That is the day's spotlight state, and the spotlight rotates among the five. A highlight marks the state the video talks about; it is not a judgment about the figure.
Every row comes from one release
All six rows on a panel come from the same publisher, the same product, the same period and the same release. That is why one source line covers the whole chart. It also means the rows use the same definition, so you are comparing like with like on that one measure.
When a publisher labels its figures preliminary, the label applies to every row, because every row came out on the same day. We do not mix periods or releases on one panel.
The national line is the publisher's figure
The bottom row is the national figure the publisher reports for the same period in the same release. It is not an average of the five states above it, and it is not something we calculate. Reading a state row against the national row tells you how that state's figure sits next to the national one for that measure and period, and nothing more.
What a panel does not tell you
A panel shows levels, side by side, as published: dollar amounts or counts. It does not show growth, shares or trends, it does not explain why the figures differ, and it does not predict anything. Differences between rows can reflect many things at once. For pay, the publisher itself points to the mix of full-time and part-time work, the mix of higher- and lower-paying jobs, and the number of pay dates in the period.
A panel is also not advice. It does not say where to live, when to buy or sell, or whether to borrow.
Where to go next
The Sources list below names the release behind our weekly-pay panel. Average weekly pay and single-family permits, line by line walks through that panel figure by figure, how to read our housing charts covers the source line itself, and our licensing details are on the licenses page.