As I have
written, statistics can often be misleading, and be used for what ever
political agenda some one likes.
For example, a case can be made that one
of the main causes of US income inequality is the great wealth so many American
enjoy. In a sense we are "victims"
of the success of so many Americans. Because so many American are so prosperous the numbers can be misleading.
Consider
the following information I came across from a reliable source:
A Danish
family can move from the bottom 10th
percentile to the top 90th percentile with
$45,000 of additional earnings; while an
American family would need an additional $93,000 to move from the bottom to the
top. As best as I can tell both countries have similar costs of living.
If so, who is
better off; a Dane whose income has gone up $45,000, thus moving her into the
top from the bottom percentile; or an American whose income went up twice as
much as the Dane's ($90,000), but went up from the bottom to only the
second highest percentile? Those who deprecate US economic mobility would say
the Dane is better off. I don't think that Dane would agree; she'd rather have
the increased income the American got, I assume.
From this
example, it appears that the US has more income inequality than Denmark.
However, is that misleading since more Americans seem to be doing better
than the Danes, even though Danes enjoy less inequality ?
However, as
I've often said statistics can be misleading , so where did I go wrong here?
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