Stat Geek: The countries with the richest and poorest rich people (and the richest poor people)

[Bucky]

Got this raw data from the CIA's online Factbook and, since I'm sick and bored at home, started crunching numbers.

The numbers I used were the CIA's stats for "household income or consumption" for each country's wealthiest 10% and poorest 10%. There was no data for about 90 countries (including some surprising places, like Puerto Rico and New Zealand, which really should have professional census & economic data lying around).

As a comparison, the whole world's stats are this:

On Earth, the poorest 10% of known humans have 2.5% of the world's wealth and the richest 10% of humans (including Kardassians) have 29.4% of the wealth. The contrast is that the world's richest 10% has (or spends) 11.8 times the amount owned or spent by the world's poorest 10%.

 

This post will look at three statistics:
    1. how much the richest 10% in each country makes,
    2. how much the poorest 10% makes, and
    3. what the ratio by country is when you compared the wealthiest to poorest people.


The Rich

The countries where the richest 10% have the greatest share of the wealth:

Namibia - 64.5%
Haiti - 47.7%
Colombia - 45.9%
South Africa - 44.7%
Bolivia - 44.1%
Ecuador - 43.3%
Brazil - 43.0%
Guatemala - 42.4%
Paraguay - 42.3%
Honduras - 42.2%

The average country in the world (not the world's average) has 31.6% (mean), with a median of 30%.
The US happens to be that "median country" for wealth of the wealthy by the way. Precisely 30% of US wealth is held or spent by our wealthiest 10%. Considering how many poor countries there are in the world, that's not a very flattering statistic. In the European Union the richest 10% only have 25.2% of the wealth.

The countries with the poorest richest 10% are...

Netherlands - 22.9%
Austria - 22.5%
Czech Republic - 22.4%
Sweden - 22.2%
Germany - 22.1%
Belarus - 22.0%
Japan - 21.7%
Slovakia - 20.9%
Romania - 20.8%
Azerbaijan - 17.5%

These may be egalitarian countries, or just countries with not a lot of wealth to spread around. Five of these countries used to be communist and two others have strong socialist tendencies.



The Poor

The countries with the wealthiest poor folks (based on total national wealth held or spent by the poorest 10% of the population) are...

Taiwan - 6.7%
Azerbaijan - 6.1%
Japan - 4.8%
Singapore - 4.4%
Bangladesh - 4.3%
Czech Republic - 4.3%
Burundi - 4.1%
Ethiopia - 4.1%
Egypt - 3.9%
Norway - 3.9%
Pakistan - 3.9%

The average country has, 2.5% of its wealth in the hands of its poorest 10% (mean 2.5%, median 2.6%). In the European Union it's 2.8% and in the US its 2.0%, which means it's slightly more sucky compared to the rest of your society to be a poor American than it is to be a poor human.

Speaking of suck, the countries with the poorest poor are...

Brazil - 1.1%
Paraguay - 1.1%
Sri Lanka - 1.1%
Argentina - 1.0%
El Salvador - 1.0%
Lesotho - 1.0%
Colombia - 0.8%
Panama - 0.8%
Haiti - 0.7%
Honduras - 0.7%
Bolivia - 0.5%
Namibia - 0.5%

The Contrast

Now, looking at what I'm gonna call the obscenity index, for each country measuring the portion of wealth owned by the richest 10% compared to the poorest 10% (using the simple formula of dividing the richests' share by the poorests'). The countries with the starket contrast are...

Namibia - 129.0         Damn!
Bolivia - 88.2
Haiti - 68.1
Honduras - 60.3
Colombia - 57.4
Panama - 51.8
Lesotho - 39.4
Brazil - 39.1
Paraguay - 38.5
El Salvador - 37.0

These are countries where one of your neighbors is specifically getting rich by screwing you personally.

In comparison, the whole planet's wealth ratio of richest to poorest is 11.8 to one. The US's is 15 to 1 and the EU's is 9 to 1. We as a country seem to be on the wrong side of that world average. The average country in the world has a 17.2 to 1 mean and a 11.6 to 1 median. The big difference between the median and the mean here is probably because the bigger the country you live in, the more likely it is that someone else is getting rich off the work you do.

The countries with the lowest ratios of rich wealth vs poor wealth are, in reverse order:

Ethiopia - 6.2
Bangladesh - 6.2
Sweden - 6.2
Taiwan - 6.1
Belarus - 6.1
Norway - 6.0
Singapore - 5.3
Czech Republic - 5.2
Japan - 4.5
Azerbaijan - 2.9

Let's let that last one sink in a bit. There are countries, prosperous capitalistic developed countries, where the richest 10% of the people only make five or six times the amount of money that the poorest 10% do. There's even one country where it's only a 3-to-1 ratio.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Interesting, though there are caveats for the comparisons

As the CIA page says,

"Data on household income or consumption come from household surveys, the results adjusted for household size. Nations use different standards and procedures in collecting and adjusting the data. Surveys based on income will normally show a more unequal distribution than surveys based on consumption. The quality of surveys is improving with time, yet caution is still necessary in making inter-country comparisons."

As a example, the UK figures for 2007-08 (not sure why the CIA still uses a 1999 figure) for the poorest:richest decile ratio at various stages are (source - http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_social/Taxes-Benefits-2007-2008/Taxes_benefits_0708.pdf - Table 14, Appendix 1, page 13):

Original income
3424: 91676 = 1: 26.8
Gross income (includes state pensions, welfare benefits, tax credits)
8820: 92936 = 1: 10.5
Equivalised disposable income (after income tax, national insurance (FICA, more or less), local property tax)
7273: 68887 = 1: 9.5
post tax income (after sales taxes, duties, taxes paid by companies selling them goods and services)
4614: 61004 = 1: 13.2
Final income (after benefits in kind, eg education, health)
12562: 64751 = 1: 5.2

And those are all figures for 'income' from one country, for one year. You also get problems like "where does health go?" In the UK, most people get it as a significant 'benefit in kind', and spend relatively little of their disposable income on it. In the US, a lot of it, for those in work, would turn up in 'original income' as 'Imputed income from benefits in kind'.

[Bucky]

2. Of course, but thanks for the reminder.

This is all very very rough data and comparisons really shouldn't be made across national lines. I was just hoping that if you throw enough data into the mix the errors don't obscure the over all statistical image that some places are full of economic exploitation and others have relatively greater social egalitarian profiles.

Anyway, i'm sick today and this is how I kill time when I can't get to work.

[truedelphi]

3. Very much appreciate it that you spent time doing this.

Your body might be down and out, but your brain is working quite well.

I guess nations like Norway tax the richer people - they have a quite progressvie taxation system.

Their minumum wage, even 30 years ago, was ten bucks an hour.

They discovered oil, lots of it in the mid nineteen seventies. So that has helped all people in all the sectors in their economy.

Much more honesty in their governing policies as well.

[Flatulo]

4. Very interesting data... I'd love to see the rate-of-change of these ratios.

For example, in the past 30 years, American increases in productivity have been staggering, yet the additional wealth created has all been skimmed. The average slob is working to death but seeing no benefit from it.

[newtothegame]

5. Where's the EVIL US on this list? n/t

[Bucky]

9. I mentioned where the US stats fell in the OP.

Evil? Really? A little perspective wouldn't hurt you.

[Javaman]

6. Do these lists also take into effect the per captia ratio? nt

[Bucky]

8. No way of knowing. The convention in the west is to gather income data by household

[Javaman]

10. It would be interesting to see a per capita break down.

I bet the US would be more prominent in the various lists.

[JDPriestly]

7. Thanks. I've saved a copy of this for future reference. Interesting.

[earcandle]

11. Thank you for doing something that contributes to the knowledge base on your sick day off!

That was cool. 

[Quantess]

12. Interesting!