Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service, your statistical guide to the World All Around Us.

I'm Charlotte.

If you want to find out what's happening in a country's economy, most people might talk

about the unemployment rate, average wages, or perhaps the numbers of people

in poverty. These statistics are created by pulling together the data of thousands, if not

millions of people.

But are we getting the whole picture?

So the data we collect is great for lots of things, right?

It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with it,

but it tends to be averages.

And so it misses the ups and downs in between,

it misses the individual stories,

the aggregates hide a lot of really important

information and so that movement of money over time in somebody's life is really

crucial when you think about what you need to know from financial data.

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