Which Percent are You? — The Actual Income Distribution in the United States
There’s been a lot said and written about income and wealth inequality in the United States recently, but most of it refers to he-said-she-said quotes and data and statistics. I thought it was time to actually dive into the primary source data to see what the real story is. And the real story is that even the good graphs are deceptive and the skew is way worse than most people comprehend.
The Tool and Visualization
I built a tool which you can see here (http://thekeesh.com/whichpercent/) which is based on Social Security Administration wage data, as well as Census income data. You can type in an individual annual income and it shows you what “percent” you are in the US. You can also dive into the source data yourself.
However, what the rest of the page tries to do is help you actually visualize what this means. The reason this is important is because the variance in incomes is so wide that it is hard to actually understand it. The incomes follow a power law, both in where the money is going and numbers of people in each bucket.
