
Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database - dpflan
http://wid.world/world/#sptinc_p99p100_z/US;FR;DE;CN;ZA;GB/last/eu/k/p/yearly/s/false/4.8255/30/curve/false
======
tuna-piano
1\. When everyone was a farmer, the difference between the best possible
farmer and the worst farmer just wasn't that great. Maybe you're 2x faster at
picking corn, or 3x better at hunting deer. But a few guys literally built a
communication tool (WhatsApp) to be used by billions of people. So maybe in
the old world you could pick 2x as much corn, but in today's world you can
build 1 billion times the communication tools as someone else.

2\. The whole idea of inequality, while potentially useful, kind of assumes a
fixed pie. The question is phrased as, "What percent of the total income pie
did the 1% take" and not "How much pie did the top 1% of people produce to
make the overall pie bigger?". I don't think either mentality is totally
correct, but both are vitally important to understand (and the second belief
is non-obvious to many). Did Steve Jobs producing the iPhone (and becoming a
billionaire) take any of the poor people's money, or did it increase the
overall output of the country? Steve jobs making the iPhone certainly made the
country more unequal, but it also made the economy bigger and the country
better off.

3\. Does anyone care about equality, or do people care about poverty? Would a
world where 1% of people had 100 yachts but 99% of people each had 1 yacht
bother you? Would you rather live in a poor equal country or a rich unequal
country?

~~~
BearGoesChirp
Part of the problem is that the inequality leads to behavior that protects the
inequality. Disney passing lobbying for laws that will keep their work out of
public domain despite how much they benefited from public domain. Drug
companies lobbying to outlaw certain products that would help people but cut
into profits.

Enough inequality allows information control. Enough information control
allows government control.

Overall, if things were constantly getting better, I doubt people would care.
But once things start stagnating for those at the bottom, they begin to
consider not playing by the current set of rules.

~~~
MR4D
> Part of the problem is that the inequality leads to behavior that protects
> the inequality.

Oddly, that statement (which I completely agree with) has nothing to do with
being rich or poor.

People in power want to stay in power - whether it's the US or a failing state
like Venezuela, they use that power against others.

I'd much rather be in a rich but unequal society - it's much more peaceful.

~~~
BearGoesChirp
I think the relationship isn't linear. Too much equality and there is no
reason to go above and beyond, to innovate or to take risks. To much
inequality, and we find the same result. Enough inequality to reward those who
do more (with some understanding that there is elements of luck), but not so
much inequality that people have to be lucky to succeed, if it is possible at
all.

~~~
transreal
I feel this is similar to a game design issue.

You want a game in which early levels are easy enough that it won't take too
much skill to get through. [Basics of society, access to housing, clean water,
health care..]

As you get to higher levels, there will be challenges that some players can't
get through [amassing enough money to buy a yacht], but that's OK.

Some players have cheat codes not available to other players [laws to help
special interests] because they have an in with the game designers
[government], and that's OK too as long as it doesn't go too far.

It's not a big deal if the most skilled players can get to really high levels
- that's not the issue.

It's when the most skilled players make the game unplayable by the average
player that you have a problem.

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dmix
Changing the graph from "Share %" to "Average Income or Wealth" shows a much
more optimistic looking chart, with every country ramping upwards, almost at
an exponentially positive rate.

The world as a whole is moving away from poverty and quality of life is
improving which IMO is the most important metric here. Far more important to
the average person than the relative wealth ratios at the top vs the bottom,
which yes I know will skew the bottom end upwards in these averages, but
regardless is still on an upward trajectory overall.

This should be the primary metric which success is measured by. And I hope in
the effort to balance the wealth ratios this progress isn't crippled in the
name of some abstract concept of equality.

~~~
david-gpu
The world would be moving away from poverty a lot faster if there was less
inequality.

~~~
dmix
Yes, lowered inequality is a good metric for success but it's very popular
these days for it to be sold as a complete solution in itself. The problem
with pure redistribution as a model for increasing wealth in developing
countries, or stagnant wealthy ones, is that you can only take someones money
and give it to another person once. You can't transfer a wealthy persons
ability to generate wealth to another person or country.

A long term reduction in poverty and a more balanced relative income ratios
has to come through self-sustainable economic development in the middle, and
upward mobility from the bottom. Wealth transfer is just a temporary fix, an
initial boost - but it is not an adequate endgame... as many pure socialist
countries quickly learned after the glow of the early days wore off.
Redistribution as a primary policy is also increasingly difficult to pull off
via central policy, given global marketplace, technology's impact on finance,
and the growth of countries which act as tax havens.

There is plenty of indifference in practice towards legitimately taxing the
wealthy but it's been a hot topic globally for a while now and I fear this
obsession has been a large distraction from figuring out how to help the
middle/bottom develop their own jobs and businesses. To push up their wages
and salaries as the primary goal, not just increasing the tax base for better
government services and reduced tax burden on the middle.

~~~
dangerlibrary
"You can't transfer a wealthy persons ability to generate wealth to another
person or country."

When wealth generation is coming from rent collection on existing assets,
redistributing wealth and redistributing wealth generation are equivalent.

~~~
ryandrake
In other words, wealth _is_ the means of production.

~~~
collyw
Nothing is being produced when rent seeking.

~~~
milcron
That's a good point, which potentially leads to Georgism:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism)

> Georgism, also called geoism and single tax, is an economic philosophy
> holding that, while people should own the value they produce themselves,
> economic value derived from land (including natural resources and natural
> opportunities) should belong equally to all members of society.

> Any natural resource which is inherently limited in supply can generate
> economic rent, but the classical and most significant example of 'land
> monopoly' involves the extraction of common ground rent from valuable urban
> locations. Georgists argue that taxing economic rent is efficient, fair, and
> equitable. The main Georgist policy recommendation is a tax assessed on land
> value. Georgists argue that revenues from a land value tax (LVT) can be used
> to reduce or eliminate existing taxes (for example, on income, trade, or
> purchases) that are unfair and inefficient. Some Georgists also advocate for
> the return of surplus public revenue back to the people by means of a basic
> income or citizen's dividend.

~~~
collyw
That actually matches my current political views fairly accurately. I didn't
know the name for it (or that there was a name for it).

------
wjnc
For those not into (macro-)economics but willing to dabble some more, a few
more sources included at the bottom.

Enough to last you a scientific lifetime. If your neural net gives meaningful
predictions of how institutions, inequality and other measures predict or
explain growth or well-being, contact your local Peter H. Lindert, Geoff
Williamson or Daron Acemoglu. Know any (worldwide, historic) datasets on
institutional arrangements: please comment!

There are a lot of open questions in economic history and many, many more
worldwide datasets taking the long view available. Used to be more theory and
(econo)metrics than data in growth economics, finally it is starting to come
around. Thank the scientists taking the time to create those datasets. Not the
easiest route, nor the quickest to tenure so it takes those special ones to
take it up.

[1] [http://gpih.ucdavis.edu/](http://gpih.ucdavis.edu/) \- Income History
Group at UC Davis

[2]
[http://www.rug.nl/ggdc/productivity/pwt/](http://www.rug.nl/ggdc/productivity/pwt/)
\- Penn World Table currently at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

[3] [https://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-
in...](https://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators)
\- World Development Indicators at The World Bank

[4] [http://www.macrohistory.net/data/](http://www.macrohistory.net/data/) \-
Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database

------
nashashmi
Ok. So I looked into it and I had my "OHHH!!" moment.

It seems income/wealth inequality got magnified because of the number of
opportunities went exponentially higher. Those who were able, took advantage
of those opportunities if they had education, business acumen, surplus income,
liquid wealth, or were fortunate enough to have ownership in an industry that
was not valued very highly before and became very valuable later.

Everybody else got left behind. The numbers everyone seems to be talking about
day in and day out is the top 1%. What we should really be looking at is the
bottom 50%. How did the bottom 50% end up from owning 20% of the wealth in
1980 and going to 5% of the wealth today?

They never had anything (like a door or opportunity or a donation box) that
could collect some of that wealth flowing from A to B. And that has stifled
opportunities for the middle class of the population.

~~~
ctdonath
If you want less of something, tax it. If you want more of something,
subsidize it.

Wealth has been increasingly taxed, poverty increasingly subsidized. For the
bottom 50%, this matters.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Are you suggesting that we should tax the poor? Wouldn't that just make it
more difficult for them to pay off debts and collect the capital required to
escape poverty?

~~~
creaghpatr
No he's pointing out that we 'anti-tax' the poor currently via entitlements
and maybe we shouldn't as much because it allows them a sustainable way to not
escape poverty.

~~~
euyyn
Following that argument, if we taxed them, their ways to not escape poverty
would be even less sustainable. Victory!

Ridiculous conclusion from a simplistic argument.

~~~
ctdonath
Way to miss the point by leaving out half of it.

We're giving people reasons to stay in poverty: don't work, and their
food/housing/healthcare will be provided for; start working, and all that gets
yanked away and whatever _is_ earned is diminished by taxation (direct and
indirect). Faced with that, there's little reason to "escape poverty".

"Stop subsidizing so much" does not equate to "start taxing them". I'm all for
massive reductions in both subsidizing and taxation. Help the abject &
deserving poor, yes; the rest should have their disincentives to work removed
and their punishment by taxation relieved.

~~~
euyyn
You're talking now of an effective marginal rate > 100%, which is not what you
said originally ("If you want less of something, tax it. If you want more of
something, subsidize it.").

I agree marginal rates should always be < 100% for the obvious reasons. I
haven't seen numbers that it ever happens, but it is to be avoided in theory,
yes.

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vijayr
[http://wid.world/world/#shweal_p0p50_z/US/last/eu/k/p/yearly...](http://wid.world/world/#shweal_p0p50_z/US/last/eu/k/p/yearly/s/false/-2.189/5/curve/false)

Does this mean the bottom 50% in the US are in the red?

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Yes. Student loans, car loans, credit cards, payday loans, and mortgages make
it incredibly tough to get a positive net worth nowadays.

Combine the expectation a better tomorrow(the American Dream) with a declining
middle class, and massive amounts of debt is what results.

~~~
Harvey-Specter
Mortgages are offset in net worth calculations by the value of the home, so
they shouldn't have much of an effect on net worth unless the house has lost
significant value or you overpaid for it. Similar situation with car loans,
although cars lost a lot of value immediately, so they could have some effect.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Loans aren't free. Including interest, the cost of a loan can easily exceed
the value of the thing being purchased with it (in fact, it initially almost
always does). Stagnant housing markets and new vehicles will both add to a
person's overall debt, even when accounting for the market value of the asset.

------
dalbasal
The interplay between wealth and income is a hard one to navigate, but I think
important.

Part of the economic story of the last generation (IMO) is embedded in this
interplay. Financialization is largely the process of turning future income
into current assets. EG, I buy a house, get a house and a mortgage. My wealth
is net 0. One house owned. One house-value owed. Part of my future income is
now someone else's current asset. They also net to 0 change (mirroring my
balance sheet). Yet obviously, something somewhere has changed.

Lending and creating money are interlinked, as is inflation. Monetarists tend
towards macroeconomic thinking, and default to regarding of inflation as a
single thing. In reality, inflation is microeconomic. More real estate
lending, higher real estate prices. Also, "inflation" as an actual phenomenon
is not simply devaluation. It is all price and market size increases,
including increases in "quality and quantity". More real estate lending,
more/bigger houses. Another striking example is american universities. More
student loans, more expensive tuition, fancier uni experiences, more students.
All that is "inflation" in the "consequences of money supply^" sense.

Another aspect that I would be interested in seeing approached is "inflation
by income level." I suspect that this is increasingly important, especially
because of housing cost fluctuations and trends. If 40% of your income is
spent on housing, a 25% increase in house prices represents 10% inflation
assuming all other prices remain constant. Similar calculation for college and
such. Your inflation could be 5% pa, while the average inflation is 0%. This
is happening now where I live. People's spending habits are very dependant by
social-wealth class, so I think it would be worth trying to generate class
specific inflation rates. I expect income inequality growth would look faster
this way.

^I'm alluding to Firedman's "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary
phenomenon" though I've defined inflation differently to the
macroeconomic/monetarist standard which explicitly excluded increases in
"quality and quantity." I think it still holds, as long as you swap "always"
with "often" which might even be necessary for Milton's.

~~~
ctdonath
_I buy a house, get a house and a mortgage. My wealth is net 0. One house
owned. One house-value owed._

Need to consider temporal dimension: a house is owned because I'm already
converting my future income into a house.

There's a difference between "net $0 now because I'm borrowing from my
substantial cumulative future creation of wealth" vs "net $0 now because I'm
not productive and won't be".

~~~
dalbasal
Yeah, I think I may have written that badly.

The temporal aspect is what makes it hard, but it's what I was trying to
comment on. Wealth now and income later are effectively fungible, in todays
world to a much greater extent than the past. This includes negative wealth
(debt).

------
fragsworth
Wealth inequality changed drastically between 1900 and now. According to the
graph, in 1901, the U.K.'s top 1% controlled 73.8% of the nation's wealth.
Today it's about 20%.

I wonder what factors caused that change. Wars and emigration maybe have
something to do with it?

~~~
pjc50
The biggest factor is probably inheritance tax and the slow fade of the
aristocracy.

There may also be a "hidden wealth" effect as people move it offshore; is
someone domiciled in the Cayman Islands who lives in the UK for <6mo a year
part of the "UK" graph?

~~~
alexasmyths
Major factors:

In 1900 there were almost no taxes - A lot of taxation is not just for
'services' \- it's distributional. So there's that.

Literacy, voting, emancipation - this to me is the biggest in the long run.
People have skills, professions, they can create/read contracts, everyone can
hire a lawyer, there is rule of law. There's much dynamism and much ado. In
1900 almost all of us lived on farms. The economy is way more diversified now.

Labour Unions - just started real power about then. Also maybe an awakening in
business: Ford paid his staff a lot more so they could actually buy Model T's.
There's some deep insight there.

Mass Media - radio, TV, internet. Information equalizers.

Gender Equality - female workforce participation exploded during the war and I
think peaked about 20 years ago. This is a massive shift in economic outcomes.

Teddy Roosevelt - he broke up 40 (!!!) monopolies. Wow. Think about that.
Basically, America was possibly taken over by corporate cabals who, in a less
diversified economy could control everything. This was I think a huge thing.
And though we can think of G, FB etc as monopolies, I don't think they have
quite the relative strength. I'm still more worried about Wallmart and Amazon
...

------
twoodfin
I think median statistics would enhance the insight available through this
tool.

Averages are not particularly useful when confounded by the very shifting
distributional patterns this is attempting to illuminate.

I'm the median Chinese worker. Per-adult national wealth has been exploding
since 1987. The bottom 50% share of wealth and income has been plummeting, so
inequality has been growing, too. But I'm a lot better off than my counterpart
30 years ago, aren't I?

~~~
boomboomsubban
Do you feel the growing inequality was necessary for the growth to occur? If
that growth slows down or stops, will you continue to be better than your
counterpart thirty years ago?

~~~
twoodfin
I don't know. I'm certainly in favor of median income growth even if it's
concurrent with growing inequality!

------
blobbers
Do I read this correctly in seeing that Wealth Inequality section in the
United States shows the top 10% have 73% of wealth, the next 40% of people
have 27% of the wealth and the bottom 50% are effectively living pay cheque to
pay cheque and have 0 (or slightly negative wealth)?

As in the average of the lower 50% debt equals savings?

------
dpflan
This was shared by the New York Times regarding the revelations of the
"Paradise Papers." For example, on this site you can explore global inequality
- consider how recently the elite have had wealth growth rates nearly double
that of the total wealth growth rate.

------
lumberjack
Michael Sandel explains why economic inequality matters.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sandel_why_we_shouldn_t_tr...](https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sandel_why_we_shouldn_t_trust_markets_with_our_civic_life)

~~~
AcerbicZero
His philosophy class on justice is also worth checking out.

[http://justiceharvard.org/](http://justiceharvard.org/)

------
rcdwealth
Wealth is created by people providing products and services to other people
and it is not a static quantity "distributed" equally or not equally.

For something as dynamic as wealth is impossible to give any representation of
its "distribution".

Neither it is useful to even speak if "inequality".

The idea of "distributing wealth" is the idea based on communism to steal
property from those who have it and give it to those who do not have it.

It is partially implemented in income tax systems all over the world.

That fact does not justify its criminal origins.

And it is so often propagated to smart online boys to make them more "fit" for
the society in which they are to yell on those who have it, in order to spread
it to those who do not have it.

Instead of asking other people's property to become your property without
giving them exchange (which is basic of crime) how about doing something
helpful?

Maybe those people who belong to the group of not having it "equal" need
better environment? Better education? Better chances for survival?

You cannot get better chance for survival by robbing other people's hard
earned wealth. It is not fair. You have a car, I do not have a car, so let me
rob you. That is criminal.

But you can get better chances for survival with education, knowledge and
training to become better producer and service provider.

Each of us is both the producer and service provider. We are producing
products and services for other people, so we help people, and we are creating
wealth.

But those writing this kind of nonsense reports wish to sit behind their TV
without creating anything for other people and get the money from "social
funds" to support their parasitic lives.

That is what those people want who are yelling at you "look at the world, it
is not equal".

------
11thEarlOfMar
What does 'Income Equality' look like?

~~~
danharaj
Abolition of class. Democratic control over the means of production.

~~~
thriftwy
These days I don't see much production around.

It's probably somewhere in the industrial zones on the outskirts of cities,
but it's not something many people do.

As a software developer I produce code. How would you exert democratic control
over means of such production? Will it involve lots of tin foil?

~~~
danharaj
> As a software developer I produce code. How would you exert democratic
> control over means of such production?

Open source software is already a model that approximates such democratic
production. If us developers didn't have to make a wage to survive, how would
we develop software?

------
ulkram
Top 1% isn't the right metric for finding the problems we want to identify. In
certain US states like new mexico, the top %1 is 230k, which any physician
could reasonably make. Are we trying to discourage physicians?

The problem with income inequality is people abusing their capital (via
compounding interest or political influence) to make more capital. I suspect
that applies to the top .01%.

------
Dowwie
The total wealth of world’s billionaires grew another 17% in 2016:
[https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/financial-
services/publ...](https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/financial-
services/publications/billionaires-insights.html#)

------
collinmanderson
This seems like a misleading graph. The map compares income share to _area_?
Wouldn't comparing to density or capita be more helpful?

I happen to know China has more population so seeing it lighter says something
to me, but having a better way to compare to the number of people would be
helpful.

------
known
[https://qz.com/843902/1-of-indians-now-hold-nearly-60-of-
the...](https://qz.com/843902/1-of-indians-now-hold-nearly-60-of-the-countrys-
wealth/)

------
kevmo
The World Bank also has this site on worldwide trade and competitiveness data:
[https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/](https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/)

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gbajson
In order to understand this data I'd like to see similar charts for the last
5000 years.

Has anyone of you seen similar stats for the middle- and ancient ages?

------
bhollan
Why does the Per Adult National Wealth line for France stop in 2010?

