These are not so much "outrageous flaws" but conscious and reasonable choices. For example, not counting things like SNAP as income makes sense because a govern

These are not so much "outrageous flaws" but conscious and reasonable choices. For example, not counting things like SNAP as income makes sense because a government policy targeted at reducing inequality is not the same as that inequality not existing. It is far more desirable for those programs to be minimized by eliminating the inequality in the first place. Also, keep in mind that Gini is most useful as relative index. Making the changes you suggest would obviously result in a better number in the US, but when recalculated for all thee other countries it would not change the situation much. In fact, since both taxes and the social safety net are low in the US, it would probably drop the rankings.