This Chart Shows How the “Unequal States of America” Compares to the World


A new report finds that the state of economic inequality in the United States is far more drastic than in other developed countries. The report, published by the German financial services company Allianz, even dubs us the “Unequal States of America.”

The company’s latest Global Wealth Report calculates 55 countries’ Gini coefficient, a measure of the distribution of wealth in which zero means total equality and 100 means total inequality. The average for all developed countries is 65. The United States’ score is nearly 81.

Allianz/Global Wealth Report 2015

Michael Heise, the chief economist at Allianz, described the situation in the United States as “worrying.” “Our calculations indicate that developments have not been quite as dramatic in the other countries,” he said. “As usual, the US represents more the exception than the rule among market economies.” The report’s authors note the country’s lackluster recovery from the financial crisis has “caused a dramatic deterioration in wealth distribution.” While the United States amassed nearly 42 percent of the world’s private wealth in 2014 ($63.5 trillion), the top 10 percent of Americans control more than two-thirds of the country’s net wealth.

The United States leads the pack, but it’s not alone. Much of the world’s developed nations saw “exceptionally large gaps” in the wealth gulf between the rich and the poor during since 2000, according to the report. Over the past decade and a half, it found, the number of countries that closed their wealth gaps was roughly the same as the number that grew more unequal.

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DEMOCRACY DOES NOT EXIST...

without free and fair elections, a vigorous free press, and engaged citizens to reclaim power from those who abuse it.

In this election year unlike any other—against a backdrop of a pandemic, an economic crisis, racial reckoning, and so much daily crazy—Mother Jones' journalism is driven by one simple question: Will America move closer to, or further from, justice and equity in the years to come?

If you're able to, please join us in this mission with a donation today. Our reporting right now is focused on voting rights and election security, corruption, disinformation, racial and gender equity, and the climate crisis. We can’t do it without the support of readers like you, and we need to give it everything we've got between now and November. Thank you.

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