SYG-2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Gini Coefficient
Document Summary
There are a variety of different ways to measure income inequality. Each metric, however, tells essentially the same story about income equality in the u. s: we have relatively high levels of income inequality and income inequality has gotten worse over time. The most comprehensive and widely used measure of income inequality is the gini index. The gini index (also known as the gini coefficient, gini ratio, or gini score) essentially measures the difference between actual income distribution and perfectly equitable distribution in which everyone makes the same amount. 0 = a perfectly equal distribution of income scores a 0 on the gini index (no income ladder) 1 = the most unequal distribution, in which a single person makes all the income. The gini index for the u. s in 2014 was 0. 47. The u. s has a far less equal society than most other advanced, developed countries. Canada has a gini index of 0. 32. U. k has a gini index of 0. 34.
