Measuring Income Inequality
6. Measuring Income Inequality
The U.S. economy has a relatively high degree of income inequality by global standards. As Table 3 shows, based on a variety of national surveys done for a selection of years in the last five years of the 2000s (with the exception of Germany, and adjusted to make the measures more comparable), the U.S. economy has greater inequality than Germany (along with most Western European countries). The region of the world with the highest level of income inequality is Latin America, illustrated in the numbers for Brazil and Mexico. The level of inequality in the United States is lower than in some of the low-income countries of the world, like China and Nigeria, or some middle-income countries like the Russian Federation. However, not all poor countries have highly unequal income distributions; India provides a counterexample.
Table 3. Income Distribution in Select Countries
|
Country |
Survey Year |
First Quintile |
Second Quintile |
Third Quintile |
Fourth Quintile |
Fifth Quintile |
|
United States |
2011 |
3.2% |
8.4% |
14.3% |
23.0% |
51.1% |
|
Germany |
2000 |
8.5% |
13.7% |
17.8% |
23.1% |
36.9% |
|
Brazil |
2009 |
2.9% |
7.1% |
12.4% |
19.0% |
58.6% |
|
Mexico |
2010 |
4.9% |
8.8% |
13.3% |
20.2% |
52.8% |
|
China |
2009 |
4.7% |
9.7% |
15.3% |
23.2% |
47.1% |
|
India |
2010 |
8.5% |
12.1% |
15.7% |
20.8% |
42.8% |
|
Russia |
2009 |
6.1% |
10.4% |
14.8% |
21.3% |
47.1% |
|
Nigeria |
2010 |
4.4% |
8.3% |
13.0% |
20.3% |
54.0% |