Global Income Inequality is on the Rise

Global Income Inequality

First Published Date : September 29, 2011

According to a report from the Conference Board of Canada, Global income inequality is on the rise and Canada has the 4th largest gap income inequality gap among its 17 peer countries. The board uses Gini Index to measure income inequality that shows the distribution of income deviates from a perfectly equal distribution zero to a totally imperfect distribution of 1. In other word, 0 means every person has the same income and 1 means one person has all the income.  

Let’s look at some of the Board’s findings in brief:

– U.S. has the largest income inequality among its peers.
– Canada has the fourth largest income inequality increase among its peers.
– 42 percent of the total world’s income goes to the richest 10 percent.
– 1 percent of the total world’s income goes to the poorest 10 percent.
– South American and southern African countries have highest inequality.
– European countries have low inequality.
– U.S. and Canada have medium inequality.
– If you are lucky to born in a rich country (like Canada) even with a low income,    
   your   income will be higher than most of the world’s population
– Canadians with low-income are richer than 75 percent of the world’s population.

According to Richard Freeman, an economics professor at Harvard, globalization and market capital raised living standards for billions and lowered inequality worldwide, but increased inequality within most countries.