Explorable income Inequality

Some countries are much more unequal than others with regards to income levels between the rich and poor. 100 years of income inequality from 29 countries has been mapped and is available in the following interactive tool created by Carnegie Mellon University. Explorable Income InequalityThis is a useful resource for Geography and Economics teachers and students to explore income inequalities within countries. The tool includes what proportion of all income that flows to the top 1% and 10%. The top 1% and 10% incomes can also be compared to the bottom 90%. For example in graph 1 below we can see the income of the top 1% in the UK is equivalent to the income of greater than 19 people from the remaining 90%. Graph 1We can also compare income between countries. For example I compared the United States, France and the United Kingdom. We can see from graph 2 that the United States is most unequally distributed, as the top 10% hold a disproportionately high share of incomes at almost 50%. Incomes of the wealthiest 10% in the UK and USA are rising over time compared to the rest of the population. in 2011 the top 10% shared 39% of the income in the UK. While France's top earners have a much lower share of income and hence there is much less income inequality. Graph 2