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eridani

(51,907 posts) Fri May 30, 2014, 02:28 AM May 2014

Science magazine has a whole issue devoted to the subject of inequality

http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/inequality/

One article--

Piketty: Income Inequality in the long run
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6186/838.full

Second, we observe the same “great inequality reversal” between Europe and the United States when we look at wealth inequality rather than income inequality. That is, the share of total net private wealth owned by the top 10% of wealth holders was notably larger in Europe than in the United States one century ago, while the opposite is true today (Fig. 2).

There are important differences between income and wealth inequality dynamics, however. First, we stress that wealth concentration is always much higher than income concentration. The top decile wealth share typically falls in the 60 to 90% range, whereas the top decile income share is in the 30 to 50% range. Even more striking, the bottom 50% wealth share is always less than 5%, whereas the bottom 50% income share generally falls in the 20 to 30% range. The bottom half of the population hardly owns any wealth, but it does earn appreciable income: On average, members of the bottom half of the population (wealth-wise) own less than one-tenth of the average wealth, while members of the bottom half of the population (income-wise) earn about half the average income.

In sum, the concentration of capital ownership is always extreme, so that the very notion of capital is fairly abstract for large segments—if not the majority—of the population. The inequality of labor income can be high, but it is usually much less extreme. It is also less controversial, partly because it is viewed as more merit-based. Whether this is justified is a highly complex and debated issue to which we later return.

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Science magazine has a whole issue devoted to the subject of inequality (Original Post) eridani May 2014 OP

thanks for posting this! eShirl May 2014 #1

eShirl

(18,503 posts)

1. thanks for posting this!

Reply to eridani (Original post)

Fri May 30, 2014, 07:12 AM

May 2014

I would have missed it

this issue's table of contents

What the numbers tell us
Gilbert Chin and
Elizabeth Culotta

A world of difference
Emily Underwood
New data allow researchers to map inequality the world over

The ancient roots of the 1%
Heather Pringle
Don't blame farming. Inequality got its start among resource-rich hunter-gatherers

Our egalitarian Eden
Elizabeth Pennisi
Hunter-gatherers—and presumably all our ancestors—lived as equals

Tax man's gloomy message: the rich will get richer
Eliot Marshall
With a massive database of income tax records, a French superstar challenges conventional wisdom on inequality

Physicists say it's simple
Adrian Cho
If the poor will always be with us, an analogy to the second law of thermodynamics may explain why

Can disparities be deadly?
Emily Underwood
Controversial research explores whether living in an unequal society can make people sick

While emerging economies boom, equality goes bust
Mara Hvistendahl
Inequality spikes in developing nations around the world

Tracking who climbs up—and who falls down—the ladder
Jeffrey Mervis
Researchers seek new ways to understand social mobility and opportunity in America

Reviews

Inequality in the long run
Thomas Piketty and
Emmanuel Saez

Skills, education, and the rise of earnings inequality among the “other 99 percent”
David H. Autor

Income inequality in the developing world
Martin Ravallion

The intergenerational transmission of inequality: Maternal disadvantage and health at birth
Anna Aizer and
Janet Currie

On the psychology of poverty
Johannes Haushofer and
Ernst Fehr

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