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#gini
Income #inequality is, unfortunately, nothing new. First-second century CE major empires were nowhere near as rich as modern ones and even more unequal ( #Gini index > 0.5) around the seat of power.
(For reference, EU's Gini is ~0.3, USA's ~0.4, South Africa's ~0.6)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58581-0
You’ve probably heard that #inequality is growing, but where is the evidence?
It’s hard to find the underlying data used to calculate the #Gini index*, but one example is USA Household Income Dispersion: 1967 to 2023 (www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/282/tableA4b.xlsx)
Here’s an animation of the data made in #geogebra using the spreadsheet functionality.
*The Gini index or coefficient is one measure of inequality. “A Gini coefficient of 0 reflects perfect equality, where all income or wealth values are the same, while a Gini coefficient of 1 (or 100%) reflects maximal inequality among values, a situation where a single individual has all the income while all others have none.” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient)
Two graphs show why America is not only the self-acclaimed Land of the Free but also the Land of the Poor.
Among OECD countries:
- the USA has the lowest unemployment benefits
- the USA has the second-highest Gini coefficient.
But this is what Americans want:
They voted to give billionaires more tax breaks.
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Gini coefficient:
Gini 0 - everybody has the same income.
Gini 1 - all income goes to the individual with the highest income.
#USA #Gini #Unemployment #OECD
Can anyone explain the massive differences in #Gini coefficients as calculated by #Worldbank and (former) #CreditSuisse?
E.g., for the U.S. in 2021, Worldbank lists 39.8 and CS 85; a pattern seen throughout.
There surely must be an explanation for this.
Sources: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI and https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/about-us/research/publications/global-wealth-databook-2022.pdf
I recently had a conversation about this with an East European co-worker.
She argued that she does not understand why immigrants want to go to East Europe when Germany is a much wealthier country.
I disagreed. Sure, Germans can afford the latest iPhone more easily, but when I’m in Romania, Poland, or Croatia, I see high-speed internet, a working infrastructure, and people owning 1-2 properties.
These are things people in Germany dream of. That’s the actual wealth.
“Germany is a rich country.” Germany is not even presented in the top 25 in terms of median wealth.
Recently, I started to disagree with this commonly used phrase. Germany is not rich. Some individuals are (which is reflected in the average wealth that pushes us up in the statistics). German people don’t own much.
And to be honest, you can see that. Everything is broken and it just getting started with the lack of funding.
#Alito blamed his #wife for the upside-down #flag at his house.
#Gini Thomas was involved in the #Jan6 #Insurrection.
T**** was having an affair with a Playmate while his (third) wife was pregnant with his 5th child, then cheated on both with a porn star.
Is it just me, or do Trumpsters seem to have a problem with "#wives"? #FamilyValues
Canada's Gini Coefficient (higher==more inequality) declined slightly from 0.37 in 1971 to 0.33 in 2017; the U.S. Gini rose from 0.35 in 1974 to 0.42 in 2019. But neither is anything to boast about. 
A #billionaire with $2.5 billion in assets can't represent the #US #middle class. During Mr. #Trump's presidency, #middleclass saw a decline while the wealthy class continued to prosper. Even before #COVID pandemic, #GINI index for the #USA (#SIPOVGINIUSA) was on the rise under Mr. Trump's leadership. However, the situation worsened under #Biden as the middle class experienced further impoverishment due to persistently high #inflation, which the Biden administration has been unable to control.
@nova #concentration is The Evil. We should compute a #Gini index on how users are distributed across instances small and large, and monitor that metric
If you'd like to learn about famous #economists, we've got #podcasts on all of these:
#Smith
#Marx
#Ricardo
#Keynes
#Hayek
#Friedman
#Pigou
#Ostrom
#Robinson
#Malthus
#Khaldun
#Kahneman
#Fawcett
#Schumacher
#Schumpeter
#Sen
#DeSolo
#Yunus
#Duflo
#Phillips
#Gini
#NashJr
#Lewis
#Buchanan
#Kuznets
#Marshall
#Veblen
With more to come... #econtwitter