Where Data Tells the Story
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In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. claimed in a speech at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." At a time of increasing living costs, sky-high housing prices, and the rising tide of populism, just how true was MLK's claim?
Using research from Guido Alfani writing for the World Inequality Lab, this visualization compares seven centuries of historical wealth concentration for Italy, Germany, the UK, the U.S., and France. In particular, the chart compares the Gini index of wealth concentration, where perfect equality is expressed as a 0 (each household or individual has the same wealth) and perfect inequality is expressed as 1 (one household or individual owns everything).