How Inequality Statistics Can Mislead You
( Excellent. )
April 20, 2019
It doesn’t matter if my income grows 500% if it started out at four cents…
by Nathan J. Robinson
I am sure you have heard plenty of people make the argument that global capitalism “lifts all boats.” Yes, as productivity increases, the rich get much richer, but the poor get richer too. Fewer people nowadays are living on $1 a day than ever before. An American poor person today lives better in many ways than a rich person in 1850. If people are unhappy, it’s because they irrationally fail to appreciate that their lives are Actually Good.
In its most extreme, Pinker-esque version, the argument can seem absurd on its face: Telling people less well-off than you that they should be more happy is not actually going to make them happy and does nothing except help you rationalize your failure to help them. But the whole “everyone is getting richer, actually” thing is said by both critics of inequality and defenders of it.
Have a look at this chart:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/04/how-inequality-statistics-can-mislead-you
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Two charts from the article - a chart showing percentages of growth:
And a chart showing distribution of income:
