Social statistics

The social statistics are twenty numbers the Social Engineering toggle tracks. They cover the country's population, immigration, crime, poverty, health, housing, civil liberties, income, gun ownership and racial composition. Each month, the policy the President actually enacted is judged for its effect on these statistics, and the dashboard's cards update to show the result. The setup screen describes the mode as tracking national statistics that the president's policies reshape, and warns that switching it on lengthens every turn.

The twenty statistics

The dashboard shows fifteen cards and a race bar. A custom presidency opens with the figures below; named scenarios open with their own decade's starting figures instead.

• Population, in millions, opens at 330.
• Legal immigration and illegal immigration, each in thousands of people a month, open at 85 and 140.
• The crime rate, in violent crimes per 100,000 people a year, opens at 380.
• Poverty, as a percentage of the population below the poverty line, opens at 11.5 per cent.
• Obesity, as a percentage of adults, opens at 42 per cent.
• Life expectancy, in years, opens at 78.5.
• Home ownership, as a percentage of households, opens at 66 per cent.
• Homelessness, per 10,000 people, opens at 18.
• Press freedom, on an index from 0 to 100, opens at 70.
• The LGBTQIA+ share of the population opens at 7.6 per cent.
• Incarceration, per 100,000 people, opens at 350.
• Overdose deaths, per 100,000 people a year, open at 22.
• Median income, in thousands of dollars a year, opens at 75.
• Gun ownership, as a percentage of households, opens at 32 per cent.
• Race, as five shares that always sum to 100 per cent, drawn as one bar. The opening shares are White 58 per cent, Hispanic 19 per cent, Black 12 per cent, Asian 6 per cent and Other 5 per cent.

Each card carries an arrow showing the immediate change the last policy made, and a smaller arrow showing the recurring monthly change now in effect. For crime, poverty, obesity, homelessness, incarceration and overdose deaths, a rise is coloured as bad. For the rest, a rise is coloured as good.

How a month moves them

A policy can produce both an immediate change to a statistic and a smaller recurring change that continues for some months afterwards. A statement or a personnel move does not touch these statistics at all. Any change to the race shares always balances back to 100 per cent, and a policy aimed at migration from a particular region shifts the racial composition gradually rather than all at once. Every statistic is held within realistic bounds, so none of them can run away to an impossible extreme.

With Expanded Congress switched on, a policy that Congress turns into a bill applies no social change until the President signs it; a vetoed bill applies nothing.

Other things that move the numbers

• A war with troops in the field raises overdose deaths and incarceration and lowers press freedom, by more the larger and bloodier the commitment.
• A nuclear strike causes the same three changes, by a larger amount.
• A Designated Survivor presidency that holds emergency surveillance powers lowers press freedom a little every month those powers stay in effect.
• Stakeholders with a passive social effect nudge the statistics up while their score is high and down while it is low.
• Covert operations change the social statistics the same way a public policy does.

Related panels

A governor in Career Mode does not see this panel; the state has its own statistics instead, tracked and shown at state scale. The president game cannot see or affect a state's statistics, and a governor cannot see the national figures either.