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https://theconversation.com/unequal-our-analysis-suggests-australia-is-a-more-equal-society-than-has-been-thought-202950>
"It has long been known that incomes in Australia are more evenly distributed
than in the United States.
But Australia has been thought to be a less equal society than many European
ones, sitting somewhere in the middle between the United States and countries
such as France.
We can measure income equality using the so-called Gini coefficient, which
gives a score of 0 to a country in which incomes are completely evenly
distributed and a score of 1 to a country in which one person has all the
income.
The OECD gives the US a score of 0.375, Australia a score of 0.32 and France a
score of 0.29.
But we’ve done work using a broader measure of income that incorporates all
taxes paid, all company profits and (importantly) in-kind benefits such as
health and education. And we’ve found the positions of Australia and France are
reversed.
The US has an even less equal distribution of incomes under this measure (0.49
compared to 0.375), France a somewhat less changed distribution (0.33 compared
to 0.29), and Australia a more equal distribution (0.28 compared to 0.32),
making Australia the most equal country of the three in terms of income broadly
defined.
We can show this in another way, comparing the share of broadly defined
national income going to the top 10% of income earners.
On this measure, the US is easily the least equal of the three, with high
earners getting 39% of national income. In Australia and France they get about
25%."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
