Morning Distribution for Friday, December 30, 2022

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Morning Distribution]( Friday, December 30, 2022 Your daily briefing from FiveThirtyEight --------------------------------------------------------------- The Morning Story [22-NUMBERS-DEFINED-roundup-4×3]( [The Numbers That Defined 2022]( By [Anna Rothschild]( What a year 2022 has been. There was so … much … news. We saw record-high inflation, war in Ukraine, a landmark Supreme Court session, continuing effects of the pandemic, the Winter Olympics, the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the World Cup and, of course, the midterms. In typical FiveThirtyEight fashion, we’ve been reflecting on 2022 the way we do best: through numbers. Here, seven of our reporters share some of the most important stats of the year, highlighting big political decisions, feelings of the electorate and hints at what’s to come in 2023. --------------------------------------------------------------- Poverty In September, the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual supplemental poverty rate for the previous year. That’s the poverty rate after accounting for the impact of key government programs targeted at low-income families, among other things. For reporter and editor Santul Nerkar, the defining number of the year was 7.8 percent, the supplemental poverty rate for 2021 and lowest rate on record. It was the first concrete measure of how COVID-19 stimulus money effected poverty in America. [[US poverty rate hit a record low — but don’t expect it to stay that way]Watch video: US poverty rate hit a record low — but don’t expect it to stay that way]( Abortion In June, the Supreme Court released its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. In short order, many states enacted abortion bans, including total bans without exceptions for rape or incest. For senior writer Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, the defining number of the year was 10,000 — that’s how many fewer legal abortions there were in just the first two months after Roe v. Wade was overturned. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: The Politics Of Prosecuting Trump]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.