Evolution of income distribution in the world since 1800A very interesting illustration of how the world is changing - and changing very quickly lately
In 1800, more than two hundred years ago, the most frequent income level in the world was less than a dollar in 2011 prices - in Europe, Asia, and Africa alike. The world was about equally poor
Over the next 175 years, by 1975, incomes in Europe and the Americas had risen to somewhere around $15 in 2011 dollars a day, but in Asia and Africa they remained the same at under $1 a day
But in just another 40 years, by 2015, the modal and median income in Asia had risen by about an order of magnitude (order = 10 times), approaching $10 a day. In Europe and the Americas, meanwhile, it's only gotten to $30-40 a day. And in Africa it is still hovering around $1.
But, thanks to the simultaneous growth of population and income in Asian countries, the world distribution of income has again become unimodal, just like in the early 19th century
