The World Inequality Report

Examining the World Inequality Report-...by the creators of the World Wealth and Income Database, who include the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez-it is tempting to see the rising concentration of incomes as some sort of unstoppable force of nature, an economic inevitability driven by globalization and technology... And yet, a careful examination of the data suggests there is nothing inevitable about untrammeled inequality. -Eduardo Porter and Karl Russell, New York Times Back in 1980, the bottom 50 percent of wage-earners in the United States earned about 21 percent of all income in the country-nearly twice as much as the share of income (11 percent) earned by the top 1 percent of Americans. But today, according to [World Inequality Report 2018], those numbers have nearly reversed: the bottom 50 percent only take in 13 percent of the income pie, while the top 1 percent grab over 20 percent of the country's income. -Christopher Ingraham, Chicago Tribune The 2018 World Inequality Report shows the share of wealth held by the top 1% of earners in the U.S. doubled from 10% to 20% between 1980 and 2016, while the bottom 50% fell from 20% to 13% in the same period. -Kofi Annan, Quartz Sure to become a standard source for data on income and wealth inequality. -Richard N. Cooper, Foreign Affairs Three and a half years ago, the English publication of Thomas Piketty's surprise bestseller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, sparked an international debate about the roots of rising inequality. Today, [World Inequality Report 2018] makes for equally sobering reading: The gap between rich and poor has increased in nearly every region in the world over the past few decades. -Eshe Nelson, Quartz Sure to spark discussion on national policy and its effects on wealth and inequality, making it a much-needed resource. -Muhammed Hassanali, Booklist