The Haves and the Have-Nots

From Michael Kruse:

New York Times Economix: The Haves and the Have-Nots

This really is a fascinating chart but it is kind of like one of those pictures with all the dots. You look at it long enough and a dolphin appears.

Across the horizontal axis are ventiles (and no, they aren't related to gentiles.) Each ventile is 1/20, or 5%, of the population ranked from least to most income. The verticle axis is percentile of the world income distribution (All income is in inflation adjusted international dollars.)

So, the poorest ventile in the USA still recieves more than 68% of the rest of the world. Brazil has a wide disparity of income with the bottom ventile at the bottom of the world distribution and the top ventile nearly on a par with the USA top ventile. India's top ventile doesn't event make it the level of the lowest ventile in the USA.

Among other things we can see how much greater is the income inequality in emerging giants but their lines are very likely to mirror the USA line in coming years.