Parsing graphs
Regarding "A Mathematician's Proposal" (Technology Page, Jan./Feb. 2008), Michael Burke makes the excellent point that our students typically experience inadequate exposure to analysis of numerical data. My biology majors even resist memorizing a few numbers, let alone using numbers to reach conclusions. Professor Krugman's New York Times Web site looks like an excellent resource.
That said, I wonder how many instructors will mention to the students who fail to notice it, that rising importation of cheap labor correlates closely with the stagnation of middle-class and lower-class wages and the rise in upper-class income.
Raymond R. White, San Francisco, Calif.

I had a hard time following this article. Mr. Burke uses Paul Krugman's graph to show us that we are returning to a new "Gilded Age." But the graph actu-ally tells us very little.
For instance, even if the extreme between rich and poor is measurably broader today than it was between 1950-1970, that may just mean that there are many more wealthy people than there used to be. Why didn't Krugman or Burke provide us a graph on this?
It is ironic that an article on the importance of quantitative literacy is not more clear.
I hope you will give Mr. Burke the opportunity to write again on this topic, because I believe it is of considerable interest to your readers.
Peter Reynolds, Los Gatos, Calif.

Michael Burke responds: I would say that one of the things we should be teaching is that one should take great care in drawing conclusions, whether those conclusion are based on a graph, a table or other evidence. Mr. Reynolds is certainly correct when he states that the graph gives no information about the absolute economic status of those in the bottom 90 percent. But the graph does give us information about the distribution of income in this country, and it clearly shows that income distribution today, at least with regard to the share of the income of the top 10 percent, has returned to the income distribution of the gilded age.

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