Reuters has created a bubble chart to show how pretax income has changed for different household segments—the bottom 50, middle 40, top 10, and top 1 percentiles—from 1980 to 2020. The y-axis shows average pretax income (adjusted to 2023 dollars), while the x-axis and bubble size both reflect the number of people in each group. The chart shows that although the lower and middle income groups grew in overall numbers, their income gains were modest. In contrast, the top 1 percent saw a dramatic rise in income, shown by a steep upward shift. The visual underscores how income growth has been unevenly distributed across income groups over the past four decades.
Visualizing Income Distribution
previous post
