Income

Inequality is a broad multifaceted concept that is impossible to reduce to a single number or visualization; to understand it better, we must look at numerous perspectives (income, wealth, education, health, access to technology, and a multitude more). Below is just a single exploration: a snapshot in time comparing the distributions of individual incomes of people within countries and across the world. You can skip to the interactive visualization, but you will get a richer picture of the data by reading the essay first.

The principle of equal opportunity holds so distinguished a place in U.S. history that it even appears in drafts of the country’s founding documents. This idea has been interpreted in various ways, but it is typically understood to mean that success …