Income inequality metrics
Income inequality metrics or income distribution metrics are used by social scientists to measure the distribution of income and economic inequality among the participants in a particular economy, such as that of a specific country or of the world in general. While different theories may try to explain how income inequality comes about, income inequality metrics simply provide a system of measurement used to determine the dispersion of incomes. The concept of inequality is distinct from poverty and fairness.
Share of pre-tax household income received by the top 1%, top 0.1% and top 0.01% in the US, between 1917 and 2005
Image: Theil Hoover
Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income, b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth, and c) consumption inequality. Each of these can be measured between two or more nations, within a single nation, or between and within sub-populations.
Tents of the homeless on the sidewalk in Skid Row, Los Angeles
An affluent house in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, roughly 12 miles from downtown
A 1916 ad for a vocational school appealed to Americans' belief in the possibility of self-betterment, as well as threatening economic insecurity through lack of education and the consequences of downward mobility in the income inequality during the Industrial Revolution
