Income Inequality by County - GINI Index

[michgc]

I think you have to be careful interpreting this index. While it sounds counter-intuitive, wealth inequality may not necessarily be a negative thing for a city/county. Let me explain: I have lived in several counties on this list. The last two counties I lived in are Orange County, NC (live there now for almost 10 years). It is part of the Raleigh/Durham Triangle. The previous county I lived in was Fairfax County, VA, a suburban county outside Washington, DC (lived there for 13 years).

Orange County, NC ranks high on this list at .5186, so lots of wealth inequality. Fairfax County ranks a good bit lower at .4258 (more equality of wealth). In reality, Fairfax County is a much wealthier county overall and much less affordable - so much less affordable that poor people, in general, cannot afford to live there, so they move elsewhere. Therefore, the incomes in the county are fairly high and in a tighter range, overall.

On the other hand, Orange County is home to UNC-Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill represents over one-third of the county's population, and there are a lot of wealthy doctors (UNC hospital), scientists, academics, etc. who live there. However, the county (and town) has made it a priority to keep the county affordable for lower-income people who work there and also make affordable housing available. They also welcome in refugees from other countries. Lastly, due to the university, there are a lot of "starving" grad students and medical residents. In other words, there is a wide array of incomes represented in the county and housing at more price points. Yes, there is a lot of inequality, because there is a lot more diversity of income and people in different stages of their lives. Having said that, there is certainly a feeling of haves/have nots in town and in the schools, which can be a good thing or a bad thing or usually a combination.

By contrast, Fairfax County's income is more uniform among its residents but is mostly unavailable as a place to live for those who are working class or poor because housing is so expensive, which means its residents are more uniformly wealthy.

[Adamson865]

Originally Posted by garyjohnyang

Gini is defined by a curve that plots cumulative income (y-axis), against cumulative percent of the population (x-axis). For example: the 10th percentile of wage earners own 5% of all income, the 20th percentile own 12%, etc.

Now if you imagine total income equality, you should see a straight line: as the income percentile of the population increases, their cumulative share of income increases by the same amount (i.e. a line with a slope of +1). Perfect inequality would be where 1 person owns 100% of all income - so the curve would be flat for all income percentiles except for the very last person, then it would jump up to 100%.

Specifically Gini measures the share of the graph that is located between the total equality curve, and the actual curve. The larger the space between the two, the higher the coefficient.

So why is this even a thing which is being measured? There's no such thing as "total income equality", there never will be, and I for one wouldn't ever dream of wanting "total income equality" or even wanting to move toward it as a goal, which is a frightening concept in a free society.

We might as well imagine unicorns dancing in the street.

[garyjohnyang]

Originally Posted by Adamson520

So why is this even a thing which is being measured? There's no such thing as "total income equality", there never will be, and I for one wouldn't ever dream of wanting "total income equality" or even wanting to move toward it as a goal, which is a frightening concept in a free society.

We might as well imagine unicorns dancing in the street.

Well certainly you could achieve higher income equality and still enjoy a very high quality of life. Australia, New Zealand, and the Nordic countries are all examples of this. I think you'd also find that with higher income inequality comes many negative effects - segregation, crime, and others - that we might not like in our "free society".

Globally average incomes have risen, even as the Gini has fallen in the past 3 decades.