{
  "alt": "Lollipop chart of the counties with the largest gains and the largest declines, sorted by percent change in births from 2018 to 2024. The top group, with gains, holds counties in Texas, North Carolina and Georgia. The bottom group, with declines, includes St. Louis city, Hinds County in Mississippi, Humboldt County in California, San Francisco County, and counties in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Indiana. The gains reach farther from zero than the declines.",
  "caption": "Dots right of the zero line gained births and dots left of it lost them. The lead gain, in Kaufman County, Texas, is {fact:largest_gain}, and the lead decline, in St. Louis city, Missouri, is {fact:largest_decline}. Every county listed had at least {fact:ext_min_births} births in 2018, and small counts move more from year to year, so the order within each group is less stable than the groups.",
  "data": [
    {
      "births_2018": 1786,
      "births_2024": 2993,
      "change": 67.58,
      "county": "Kaufman County, TX",
      "group": "Largest gains"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 1526,
      "births_2024": 2203,
      "change": 44.36,
      "county": "Comal County, TX",
      "group": "Largest gains"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 2572,
      "births_2024": 3670,
      "change": 42.69,
      "county": "Hays County, TX",
      "group": "Largest gains"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 6650,
      "births_2024": 9325,
      "change": 40.23,
      "county": "Williamson County, TX",
      "group": "Largest gains"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 1537,
      "births_2024": 2096,
      "change": 36.37,
      "county": "Parker County, TX",
      "group": "Largest gains"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 987,
      "births_2024": 1320,
      "change": 33.74,
      "county": "Brunswick County, NC",
      "group": "Largest gains"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 2214,
      "births_2024": 2914,
      "change": 31.62,
      "county": "Ellis County, TX",
      "group": "Largest gains"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 2299,
      "births_2024": 2975,
      "change": 29.4,
      "county": "Johnston County, NC",
      "group": "Largest gains"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 1173,
      "births_2024": 1501,
      "change": 27.96,
      "county": "Bartow County, GA",
      "group": "Largest gains"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 7355,
      "births_2024": 9220,
      "change": 25.36,
      "county": "Montgomery County, TX",
      "group": "Largest gains"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 4127,
      "births_2024": 3142,
      "change": -23.87,
      "county": "St. Louis city, MO",
      "group": "Largest declines"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 3041,
      "births_2024": 2361,
      "change": -22.36,
      "county": "Hinds County, MS",
      "group": "Largest declines"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 1364,
      "births_2024": 1062,
      "change": -22.14,
      "county": "Humboldt County, CA",
      "group": "Largest declines"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 3109,
      "births_2024": 2449,
      "change": -21.23,
      "county": "St. Clair County, IL",
      "group": "Largest declines"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 1518,
      "births_2024": 1204,
      "change": -20.69,
      "county": "Monroe County, PA",
      "group": "Largest declines"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 1506,
      "births_2024": 1195,
      "change": -20.65,
      "county": "Terrebonne Parish, LA",
      "group": "Largest declines"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 8697,
      "births_2024": 6930,
      "change": -20.32,
      "county": "San Francisco County, CA",
      "group": "Largest declines"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 1326,
      "births_2024": 1072,
      "change": -19.16,
      "county": "Fayette County, PA",
      "group": "Largest declines"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 4656,
      "births_2024": 3769,
      "change": -19.05,
      "county": "Orleans Parish, LA",
      "group": "Largest declines"
    },
    {
      "births_2018": 1246,
      "births_2024": 1010,
      "change": -18.94,
      "county": "Monroe County, IN",
      "group": "Largest declines"
    }
  ],
  "id": "births_change_extremes",
  "notes": [
    "The named counties are the {fact:counties_used} that CDC WONDER natality identifies in every year from 2018 to 2024: counties with {fact:wonder_threshold} or more residents in the population vintage WONDER uses, which is earlier than the 2020 Census. WONDER pools the births of every other county in a state into one row, so those counties are not in the named counties.",
    "Births are full counts, so no interval is drawn. The data table lists each county's births in 2018 and 2024."
  ],
  "source": "CDC WONDER natality, births in 2018-2024; full counts of births (no sampling error); county changes are not weighted",
  "spec": {
    "colors": {
      "Largest declines": "highlight",
      "Largest gains": "accent"
    },
    "group": "group",
    "reference": 0,
    "referenceLabel": "No change",
    "sort": "desc",
    "stem": true,
    "valueLabels": true,
    "x": "change",
    "xDomain": [
      -30,
      75
    ],
    "xFormat": {
      "digits": 1,
      "signed": true
    },
    "xLabel": "Change in live births, 2018 to 2024 (%)",
    "y": "county"
  },
  "subtitle": "Percent change in live births from 2018 to 2024 for the {fact:ext_n} named counties with the largest gains and the {fact:ext_n} with the largest declines, of the {fact:counties_used} named counties",
  "title": "The {fact:ext_n} largest gains in births are all in the South, and the {fact:ext_n} largest declines are spread across every Census region",
  "type": "dot",
  "width": "wide"
}