Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies

[Napodano]

'We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.' On TED TV at  http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html

[harnett]

Yes - saw this a couple of years ago - and since then inequality has worsened in the world!!  What would he say now?

[harnett]

Inequality has been on the rise over the last 20 years and is threatening to have significant implications for growth, poverty and stability. The graph attached gives a snapshot of global income inequality, ranked from the most to the least unequal country. The average Gini index (which measures inequality, with zero for complete income equality and 100 for complete income inequality) for the world is 40%. African and Latin American countries are among the most unequal countries while Northern and Eastern European countries are at the other end of the spectrum.