Some of my favorite data visualizations are the charts produced by Branko Milanovic, which compare national income distributions to global income distributions. So I was thrilled to discover this website (created by Boris Yakubchik) which transforms Milanovic’s data into an interactive format where users can select which countries they want to graph. Below is a sample that I created using some of my favorite countries.
It can take a minute to understand what is going on, so here’s a brief primer and some examples. The vertical y-axis displays PPP-adjusted income and global income percentile, while the horizontal x-axis displays national income percentile. Let’s look at some examples from my chart:
- An American earning $5,000/year is in the 8th percentile of American earners, but in the 70% percentile globally.
- An Indonesian earning $3,000/year earns more than 90% of Indonesians, but only more than 60% of people globally.
- A Dane earning $20,000/year is a very average Dane (~50% percentile), although they are close to the top 5% of earners globally.
It is easy to see that even poorer Americans and Danes are generally wealthier than the richer Indians, Indonesians, and Nepalis. This is just one observation made about a handful of countries, but there are many more ideas to takeaway from this data. Check out the website and create your own!
