Swimming pool drowning deaths in the US

American e-filed tax returns going up; American swimming-pool drowning deaths going down. Two unrelated metrics of the country getting more careful in different ways, sharing a window through which the country apparently improved its administration of itself.

IRS e-filed returns grew from about 70 million in 2005 to over 150 million by 2021 as the IRS phased out paper acceptance and tax-prep software (TurboTax, H&R Block) expanded. Swimming pool drowning deaths declined across the same window as anti-entrapment laws, fence requirements, and pool-safety education campaigns reduced per-pool risk. Two completely unrelated improvement curves sharing a window because the same seventeen years happened to be a productive era for both digital filing adoption and pool-safety regulation.

Two unrelated kinds of paperwork got safer and easier. The decade quietly improved its own paperwork.