Putting Big Numbers in Context: It's Not Hard

The Washington Post had a piece discussing a proposal to increase access to child care. The piece told readers the proposal would cost $20 billion a year. It then added this could:

"be financed through a 0.2 percentage-point increase in payroll taxes, which advocates say equals $72.04 a year for the average female worker."

While the $20 billion figure likely would mean little to most Post readers since few have much sense of how large this is relative to the budget or their tax bill, most rea...