📊 EV’s Charts of the Week #55
Hi, I’m Azeem Azhar. I convene Exponential View to help us understand how our societies and political economy will change under the force of rapidly accelerating technologies.
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Department of Money
Old money, new money
Fascinating data from France shows that retirees have a higher average income than working people. In 2016, the median income before redistribution, excluding the financial income of pensioners, was 22,370 Euros. Via Chris Pope
Due to French pension taxes, the poor pay higher marginal tax rates than the wealthy. Top 1% of the French have the lowest relative tax burden. Via Revolution Fiscale
Equalising until it wasn’t
Over the past 100 years, the equalisation of wealth has increased steadily in the West. Inequality stops declining and starts to increase in the mid 1979s with the shift in economic orthodoxy. Via Vox EU
The real 1%
Half of the wealthiest 1% in the world live in the US. Branko Milanovic makes a great point that if you are in the top income bracket in the US, you can’t say that “we are the 99%” globally. Via Branko Milanovic
Poverty in China
China’s economic miracle is no secret. The country has engaged in historical reductions of extreme poverty since 1981 [75% of global poverty reduction!]. New reporting from the Wall Street Journal suggests that it will be tougher to get factual information about the Chinese economy in the near term. Via Lugo et al