Posted by Henry on March 10, 2008 12:36 AM|Permalink
Comments
1. It’s not clear what happens around the y axis scale change so I question what this graph is really showing for the middle 60% in particular
2. Why is the top 1% assumed to be any kind of meaningful measure? If Bill Gates earns another billion is the gap between the way he lives his life and my life any larger? No. It just means he has another billion he has to figure out how to give away.
3. Speaking of point 2, picking the top 1% means the income data is skewed by the super rich
4. There is no way to discuss/show mobility between the classes, which is a key measure of “fairness” in an economy
5. So what? Is measuring “inequality” anything more than saying we should judge ourselves based purely on envy of other people’s money? If all of the top 1% had had little or no growth in income, would anyone else be better off? The underlying assumption of the whole graph is that the top 1% are somehow getting things at the expense of everyone else which, in a capitalist economy is ridiculous.
Isn’t this actually a rather poor graphical representation of quantitative information? For one, on this graph an overall proportional growth in incomes would look a good deal like this graph. And ideal inequality visualization should be unaffected by proportional income increases. I would like to see a graph that charts fractions of income going to earners that is continuous (i.e. in 3d).
I think these comments are trying awful hard to miss the point.
Look again:
1) There is no “change in scale.” There is simply an extra horizontal line for ease of reference. And really, how hard is it to tell what is going on there?
2) The rest of Robert L.’s comments amount to: “what is so important about inequality?” A fair question, but given that the chart purports to show us about rising inequality, questioning its relevance is hardly the same as questioning its efficacy.
3) And jsalvati, no, an overall “proportional growth” would look quite different. To take one possible example, the top 1% are shown to have roughly tripled their incomes. Granted, it would not take a line of the same slope to reflect tripling in the other groups. But nonetheless, do their lines reflect tripling? Obviously not. Not even close.
Comments
1. It’s not clear what happens around the y axis scale change so I question what this graph is really showing for the middle 60% in particular
2. Why is the top 1% assumed to be any kind of meaningful measure? If Bill Gates earns another billion is the gap between the way he lives his life and my life any larger? No. It just means he has another billion he has to figure out how to give away.
3. Speaking of point 2, picking the top 1% means the income data is skewed by the super rich
4. There is no way to discuss/show mobility between the classes, which is a key measure of “fairness” in an economy
5. So what? Is measuring “inequality” anything more than saying we should judge ourselves based purely on envy of other people’s money? If all of the top 1% had had little or no growth in income, would anyone else be better off? The underlying assumption of the whole graph is that the top 1% are somehow getting things at the expense of everyone else which, in a capitalist economy is ridiculous.
Posted by: Robert L. | March 10, 2008 12:25 PM
Reminds me a bit of this. Not a great graph by most standards, but still effective.
(And certainly not something to get all worked up about…).
Posted by: C. Zorn | March 10, 2008 01:33 PM
Isn’t this actually a rather poor graphical representation of quantitative information? For one, on this graph an overall proportional growth in incomes would look a good deal like this graph. And ideal inequality visualization should be unaffected by proportional income increases. I would like to see a graph that charts fractions of income going to earners that is continuous (i.e. in 3d).
Posted by: jsalvati | March 10, 2008 04:17 PM
I think these comments are trying awful hard to miss the point.
Look again:
1) There is no “change in scale.” There is simply an extra horizontal line for ease of reference. And really, how hard is it to tell what is going on there?
2) The rest of Robert L.’s comments amount to: “what is so important about inequality?” A fair question, but given that the chart purports to show us about rising inequality, questioning its relevance is hardly the same as questioning its efficacy.
3) And jsalvati, no, an overall “proportional growth” would look quite different. To take one possible example, the top 1% are shown to have roughly tripled their incomes. Granted, it would not take a line of the same slope to reflect tripling in the other groups. But nonetheless, do their lines reflect tripling? Obviously not. Not even close.
C’mon.
Posted by: Joel | March 12, 2008 10:29 AM