A Washington Post article on wealth in America recently cited the CIA’s World Factbook as ranking the United States as, in the WP’s words, “far more unequal than the European Union and the United Kingdom. The United States is in the company of developing countries — just behind Cameroon and Ivory Coast and just ahead of Uganda and Jamaica.”
Is our income inequality as severe as Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda and Jamaica?
The answer is Yes, according to the “Gini Index.”
This index — the GINI INDEX — measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of family income in a country. The index is calculated from the Lorenz curve, in which cumulative family income is plotted against the number of families arranged from the poorest to the richest. The index is the ratio of (a) the area between a country’s Lorenz curve and the 45 degree helping line to (b) the entire triangular area under the 45 degree line. The more nearly equal a country’s income distribution, the closer its Lorenz curve to the 45 degree line and the lower its Gini index, e.g., a Scandinavian country with an index of 25. The more unequal a country’s income distribution, the farther its Lorenz curve from the 45 degree line and the higher its Gini index, e.g., a Sub-Saharan country with an index of 50. If income were distributed with perfect equality, the Lorenz curve would coincide with the 45 degree line and the index would be zero; if income were distributed with perfect inequality, the Lorenz curve would coincide with the horizontal axis and the right vertical axis and the index would be 100.
1 Namibia 70.7
2 South Africa 65.0
3 Lesotho 63.2
4 Botswana 63.0
5 Sierra Leone 62.9
6 Central African Republic 61.3
7 Haiti 59.2
8 Colombia 58.5
9 Bolivia 58.2
10 Brazil 56.7
11 Guatemala 55.1
12 Honduras 53.8
13 Hong Kong 53.3
14 Paraguay 53.2
15 El Salvador 52.4
16 Chile 52.4
17 Panama 51.0
18 Papua New Guinea 50.9
19 Zambia 50.8
20 Niger 50.5
21 Swaziland 50.4
22 Gambia, The 50.2
23 Zimbabwe 50.1
24 Dominican Republic 49.9
25 Peru 49.6
26 Sri Lanka 49.0
27 Mexico 48.2
28 Costa Rica 48.0
29 Singapore 47.8
30 Madagascar 47.5
31 Mozambique 47.3
32 Nepal 47.2
33 Uruguay 47.1
34 Ecuador 46.9
35 Rwanda 46.8
36 Philippines 45.8
37 Uganda 45.7
38 Jamaica 45.5
39 United States 45.0
40 Cameroon 44.6
41 Cote d’Ivoire 44.6
42 Iran 44.5
43 Malaysia 44.1
44 Nigeria 43.7
45 Guyana 43.2
46 Nicaragua 43.1
47 Thailand 43.0
48 Cambodia 43.0
49 Kenya 42.5
50 Burundi 42.4
51 Russia 42.2
52 China 41.5
53 Argentina 41.4
54 Senegal 41.3
55 Turkey 41.0
56 Venezuela 41.0
57 Morocco 40.9
58 Turkmenistan 40.8
59 Georgia 40.8
60 Mali 40.1
61 Tunisia 40.0
62 Jordan 39.7
63 Burkina Faso 39.5
64 Ghana 39.4
65 Israel 39.2
66 Mauritania 39.0
67 Mauritius 39.0
68 Macedonia 39.0
69 Malawi 39.0
70 Portugal 38.5
71 Guinea 38.1
72 Timor-Leste 38.0
73 Yemen 37.7
74 Japan 37.6
75 Moldova 37.4
76 Armenia 37.0
77 Vietnam 37.0
78 Indonesia 37.0
79 India 36.8
80 Uzbekistan 36.8
81 Benin 36.5
82 Azerbaijan 36.5
83 New Zealand 36.2
84 Latvia 36.0
85 Lithuania 36.0
86 Algeria 35.3
87 Poland 34.9
88 Tanzania 34.6
89 Laos 34.6
90 Egypt 34.4
91 Bosnia and Herzegovina 34.1
92 United Kingdom 34.0
93 Switzerland 33.7
94 Bulgaria 33.5
95 Bangladesh 33.2
96 Greece 33.0
97 Mongolia 32.8
98 France 32.7
99 Tajikistan 32.6
100 Taiwan 32.6
101 Canada 32.1
102 Italy 32.0
103 Spain 32.0
104 Romania 32.0
105 Estonia 31.4
106 Korea, South 31.4
107 Ukraine 31.0
108 Netherlands 30.9
109 Pakistan 30.6
110 Australia 30.5
111 European Union 30.4
112 Kyrgyzstan 30.3
113 Ethiopia 30.0
114 Montenegro 30.0
115 Kosovo 30.0
116 Ireland 29.3
117 Croatia 29.0
118 Denmark 29.0
119 Cyprus 29.0
120 Slovenia 28.4
121 Belgium 28.0
122 Iceland 28.0
123 Belarus 27.9
124 Germany 27.0
125 Finland 26.8
126 Albania 26.7
127 Kazakhstan 26.7
128 Slovakia 26.0
129 Austria 26.0
130 Czech Republic 26.0
131 Malta 26.0
132 Luxembourg 26.0
133 Serbia 26.0
134 Norway 25.0
135 Hungary 24.7
136 Sweden 23.0