Proportion

Veronique de Rugy:

My colleague Matt Michell sends me this remarkable chart courtesy of Catherine Rampell of Economix. It is from a new book, The Haves and the Have Nots, by the World Bank’s Branko Milanovic. It takes a moment to wrap your head around it, but it’s worth the time.

The chart:



The conclusion:

Debate over the data aside, the most striking point on this chart is that even the poorest 5 percent of Americans are among the richest people in the world — richer than nearly 70 percent of the world’s population.

[Quote from the chart's author omitted]

I doubt this is comforting to the poorest Americans, but it does show that America is doing something right.

Why don't America's poorest simply buy a plane ticket to India to become the richest peasant in the village?