Fatal dog attacks in the USNumber of billionaires worldwide
US fatal dog attacks and the number of billionaires worldwide have, between 2016 and 2023, risen together at a correlation of 0.895. Two forms of unchecked expansion — one in canines, one in wealth concentration — growing through the same eight years. Whether the billionaires' dogs are responsible is a question nobody should actually ask.
US fatal dog attacks grew from around 34 per year in 2016 to nearly 100 by 2023, driven by pandemic adoption and breed shifts. The global count of billionaires climbed from around 1,810 in 2016 to over 2,600 by 2023, driven by asset price inflation, tech wealth concentration, and pandemic-era monetary expansion. The two trends share no direct mechanism but reflect the same decade's compounding expansion across categories, with more of essentially everything being counted each year. The dog and the ledger are not connected.
Eight years of two lines rising together can describe two unrelated expansions on the same calendar. The bite and the billion share no origin story. Both, however, got larger.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “Fatal dog attacks in the US” vs “Number of billionaires worldwide” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
