Unequal Distribution

  Unequally distributed growth can be measured by “distributional national accounts”, a new metric which shows the share of growth taken by each income tenth of the population.

 In the US, these show that from 1980 to 2014, GDP rose by 60% – but while the incomes of the poorest fifth of the population grew by just 4%, those of the richest 1% of the population tripled. 

In the UK, it is estimated that between 1979 and 2012, almost 40% of economic growth went to the richest 10% of the population, while the entire bottom half received less than 10%.