4 ms·

I'm basing that on global numbers, not national numbers. Sure, I don't doubt that in developed economies inequality is getting worse. But in the past 4 decades

I'm basing that on global numbers, not national numbers. Sure, I don't doubt that in developed economies inequality is getting worse. But in the past 4 decades, I'll remind you that around 800,000,000 Chinese (that's eight hundred million people) were lifted above the global poverty line and were able to stop subsistence farming. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/l... So to say that global inequality is getting worse, when billion+ have been lifted out of abject poverty in that time, it's not correct to me. Things were worse 40 years ago when billion+ more humans were below the global poverty line, even if today billionaires are even richer than the middle class.

owisd 4y ago
There's a good video on how that $1.90 is arbitrary and too low, and if you try to come up with a poverty line from first principles, you end up more in the $5-$12 range, where it doesn't paint such a great picture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo2gwS4VpHc#t=19m16s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo2gwS4VpHc#t=19m16s
RyanHamilton 4y ago
Inequality is about the ratio of high earners to low earners. What you have linked to is a different concept, i.e. absolute income. Income inequality in china also increased, see figure 5: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2019/04/01/income-inequality-is-growing-fast-in-china-and-making-it-look-more-like-the-us/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2019/04/01/income-ine... Imagine you live in a neighbourhood of 50 people. Everyone starts earning more, that's absolute income increase. Then imagine your richer neighbours income has increased 100x faster than anyone else, that's income inequality.

4 ms·

I'm basing that on global numbers, not national numbers. Sure, I don't doubt that in developed economies inequality is getting worse. But in the past 4 decades

by criley2 4y ago

owisd 4y ago
There's a good video on how that $1.90 is arbitrary and too low, and if you try to come up with a poverty line from first principles, you end up more in the $5-$12 range, where it doesn't paint such a great picture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo2gwS4VpHc#t=19m16s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo2gwS4VpHc#t=19m16s
RyanHamilton 4y ago
Inequality is about the ratio of high earners to low earners. What you have linked to is a different concept, i.e. absolute income. Income inequality in china also increased, see figure 5: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2019/04/01/income-inequality-is-growing-fast-in-china-and-making-it-look-more-like-the-us/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2019/04/01/income-ine... Imagine you live in a neighbourhood of 50 people. Everyone starts earning more, that's absolute income increase. Then imagine your richer neighbours income has increased 100x faster than anyone else, that's income inequality.