Income Distribution by Country

List of countries by income equality

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a list of countries or dependencies by income inequality metrics, including Gini coefficients. The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality (where everyone has the same income) and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality (where one person has all the income—and everyone else has no income).

Key:
R/P 10%: The ratio of the average income of the richest 10% to the poorest 10%.
R/P 20%: The ratio of the average income of the richest 20% to the poorest 20%.
Gini: Gini index, a quantified representation of a nation’s Lorenz curve. A Gini index of 0% expresses perfect equality, while index of 100% expresses maximal inequality.
UN: Data from the United Nations Development Program.
CIA: Data from the Central Intelligence Agency‘s The World Factbook.

Using the above 24 countries as a benchmark there are only two countries that have more unequal income distribution than our country, Costa Rica & South Africa. This chart illustrates the issue of the decline in income equity for the middle class. Since 1980 the real GDP per Capita has increased by 80%, but real income to the middle class has increased less than 8%. Does this seem fair to you?