What’s New About Inequality in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States?

What’s New About Inequality in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US?

In this issue brief, Matthew Fisher-Post highlights some new findings and long-run trends, based on the new and updated estimates of inequality from distributional national accounts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.

Key Results

• In 2019, the US top 10% captures 45% of the national income, close to half of it.
• Australia and New Zealand remain significantly more equal than their North American counterparts, with the top 10% capturing respectively 35% and 37% of the national income in 2019.
• In all four countries, we see declining labor compensation (ie wage) as a share of national income, and this decline does not reflect an increase in self-employment. Instead, corporate profits have surged.

>> Click here to access the data

Figure – Evolution of Inequality in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States

This figure shows the top 10% share of national income in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US, from 1980 to 2019.

Contacts

 Author

• Matthew Fisher-Post (WIL; Harvard University): matthew_fisher-post@hks.harvard.edu

Media contact

• Olivia Ronsain: olivia.ronsain@wid.world; +33 7 63 91 81 68

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC Grant 856455) from the French National Research Agency (EUR Grant ANR-17-EURE-0001), as well as from the United Nations Development Program (Project 00093806).