But it takes the plumbing the depths of the human condition to realize that we're not actually a that different, and that the fundamentals are the SAME. Airy eloquent prose may not have the same effect on the data driven as hard metrics, but comparing $20,000 (US) a year to the equivalent of $1 US a day, without capturing, in prose, that person in the US below the poverty line may be going hungry more days a week, and is more exposed to the elements, and more likely to be harrassed by police/others and more likely to die, is superficial.

Prose is what's needed to communicate effectively. Tables and charts simply can't do that by themselves. Even they need a legend and labels to be useful.