Wednesday 17 August 2011

Further to Warren Buffet: The Gini Coefficient, a Measure of Income Inequality

When talking about taxing the rich and the effects of inequality, it's useful to look at a country's Gini coefficient. That is a measure of household income inequality where 0 would be complete equality and is based on the distribution of household incomes. The CIA makes some interesting calculations--after all, if you're an intelligence agency you ought to look at all factors that might affect a country's stablity and instabilty.

In 1994 Canada's was 31.5 and in 2005, 32.1. which isn't too bad, compared to France's 32.7 in both 1995 and 2008. The USA had 40.8 in 1997 and 45 in 2007, definitely a trend in the wrong direction. Brazil on the other hand is going in the other direction, with 60.7 in 1998 and 56.7 in 2005, after a few years of Lula's social programs.

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