Cross-national research on the causes and consequences of income inequality has been hindered by the limitations of the existing inequality datasets: greater coverage across countries and over time has been available from these sources only at the cost of significantly reduced comparability across observations. The goal of the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) is to meet the needs of those engaged in broadly cross-national research by maximizing the comparability of income inequality data while maintaining the widest possible coverage across countries and over time. The SWIID’s income inequality estimates are based on thousands of reported Gini indices from hundreds of published sources, including the OECD Income Distribution Database, the Socio-Economic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean generated by CEDLAS and the World Bank, Eurostat, the World Bank’s PovcalNet, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, national statistical offices around the world, and academic studies while minimizing reliance on problematic assumptions by using as much information as possible from proximate years within the same country. The data collected and harmonized by the Luxembourg Income Study is employed as the standard. The SWIID currently incorporates comparable Gini indices of disposable and market income inequality for 199 countries for as many years as possible from 1960 to the present; it also includes information on absolute and relative redistribution.

Global Income Inequality Dataset (2000–2023)

Overview

This dataset provides a comprehensive look at global income inequality from the year 2000 to 2023. It includes key indicators such as Gini index, average income, income distribution across different population percentiles, and income group classifications for 30 countries worldwide. The dataset offers insights into how income is distributed within nations and highlights disparities across different economic groups.

Data Features

• Country: The name of the country.
• Year: The year of the data point (2000–2023).
• Population: The estimated population for the given year.
• Gini Index: A measure of income inequality, where 0 represents perfect equality and 1 represents maximum inequality.
• Average Income (USD): The average income in USD for the country in the given year.
• Top 10% Income Share (%): The percentage of total income held by the top 10% of the population.
• Bottom 10% Income Share (%): The percentage of total income held by the bottom 10% of the population.
• Income Group: Categorization of the country’s income group (Low Income, Lower Middle Income, Upper Middle Income, High Income).

Potential Uses

• Economic Analysis: Understand global income inequality trends and how they vary by country and region.
• Predictive Modeling: Use the dataset to build machine learning models predicting future income inequality based on historical data.
• Policy Research: Study the impact of income distribution on policy decisions and economic growth in different nations.
• Visualization: Create heatmaps, time series charts, and more to visualize the income inequality across various countries and years.

Source

The data has been generated to simulate realistic income inequality patterns based on publicly available data on global economic trends.

The OECD Income Distribution database (IDD) has been developed to benchmark and monitor countries' performance in the field of income inequality and poverty. It contains a number of standardised indicators based on the central concept of "equivalised household disposable income", i.e. the total income received by the households less the current taxes and transfers they pay, adjusted for household size with an equivalence scale. While household income is only one of the factors shaping people's economic well-being, it is also the one for which comparable data for all OECD countries are most common. Income distribution has a long-standing tradition among household-level statistics, with regular data collections going back to the 1980s (and sometimes earlier) in many OECD countries.

Achieving comparability in this field is a challenge, as national practices differ widely in terms of concepts, measures, and statistical sources. In order to maximise international comparability as well as inter-temporal consistency of data, the IDD data collection and compilation process is based on a common set of statistical conventions (e.g. on income concepts and components). The information obtained by the OECD through a network of national data providers, via a standardized questionnaire, is based on national sources that are deemed to be most representative for each country.

Small changes in estimates between years should be treated with caution as they may not be statistically significant.

Fore more details, please refer to: https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/IDD-Metadata.pdf and https://www.oecd.org/social/income-distribution-database.htm

This is a data record which corresponds to the paper "A consistent dataset for the net income distribution for 184 countries, aggregated to 32 geographical regions and the world from 1958-2015" (Narayan et al. 2023, in prep) https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2023-137/

Description/Abstract- Data on the income distribution within and across countries are increasingly becoming important to inform analysis on income inequality and human welfare. While datasets on the income distribution collected from household surveys are available for multiple countries, these datasets often do not represent the same income concept and therefore make comparisons across countries and across datasets difficult. Here, we present a consistent dataset on the income distribution across 184 countries which all represent a single income concept namely net-income. We complement the observed values in this dataset with values of the income distribution imputed from summary measures such as the GINI coefficient to generate a consistent time series across countries from 1958 to 2015. For the imputation, we use a recently developed PCA based approach which shows an excellent fit to the latest data on income distributions. We also present another version of this dataset which is aggregated from the country level to 32 geographical regions and the world as a whole. Our aggregation method takes into account both within country and cross- country income inequality when aggregating to the regional level. This dataset will enable more robust analysis of the income distribution at multiple scales.

The adjusted net national income per capita worldwide stood at 9,707.19 U.S. dollars in 2021. Between 1970 and 2021, the net national income per capita rose by 9,011.28 U.S. dollars, though the increase followed an uneven trajectory rather than a consistent upward trend.

The average for 2021 based on 71 countries was 27.53 percent. The highest value was in Colombia: 43.7 percent and the lowest value was in Slovakia: 19.1 percent. The indicator is available from 1963 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Graph and download economic data for Current receipts from the rest of the world: Income receipts (B645RC1Q027SBEA) from Q1 1947 to Q2 2025 about receipts, income, and GDP.

Upvote if its helpful for you Thank You Dive into the intricate relationship between happiness and income inequality with our comprehensive dataset sourced from the World Bank. Uncover key insights into how nations' happiness levels may be influenced by economic disparities. Explore the nuances of global well-being and socioeconomic factors, shedding light on the intricate connections between happiness and income distribution on a worldwide scale. Harness the power of data to gain valuable insights into the factors that contribute to societal contentment and address the complexities of global happiness. Columns in dataset are: Column Names: ['country', 'adjusted_satisfaction', 'avg_satisfaction', 'std_satisfaction', 'avg_income', 'median_income', 'income_inequality', 'region', 'happyScore', 'GDP', 'country.1']

Since 2000, the share of the world's total labor income before tax earned by women fluctuated between ***** percent to ***** percent. This is significantly less than their male counterparts. There are also differences between the world regions.

This dataset includes combined and standardized Gini data from eight original sources: Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), Socio-Economic Database for Latin America (SEDLAC), Survey of Living Conditions (SILC) by Eurostat, World Income Distribution (WYD; the full data set is available here), World Bank Europe and Central Asia dataset, World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), World Bank Povcal, and Ginis from individual long-term inequality studies (just introduced in this version).

The UNU-WIDER World Income Inequality Database (WIID) collects and stores information on income inequality for developed, developing, and transition countries.

Graph and download economic data for Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments: Wage and salary payments (NA000274Q) from Q1 2002 to Q2 2025 about payments, salaries, wages, income, and GDP.

United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments was 1468.44500 Bil. of $ in April of 2025, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments reached a record high of 1468.44500 in April of 2025 and a record low of 0.46100 in July of 1947. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on November of 2025.

Graph and download economic data for Current receipts from the rest of the world: Income receipts: Wage and salary receipts (B4188C1A027NBEA) from 1948 to 2024 about receipts, salaries, wages, income, and GDP.

Graph and download economic data for Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments: Wage and salary payments (B4189C1A027NBEA) from 1948 to 2024 about payments, salaries, wages, income, and GDP.

Japan JP: Income Share Held by Lowest 20% data was reported at 7.400 % in 2008. Japan JP: Income Share Held by Lowest 20% data is updated yearly, averaging 7.400 % from Dec 2008 (Median) to 2008, with 1 observations. Japan JP: Income Share Held by Lowest 20% data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Japan – Table JP.World Bank.WDI: Poverty. Percentage share of income or consumption is the share that accrues to subgroups of population indicated by deciles or quintiles. Percentage shares by quintile may not sum to 100 because of rounding.; ; World Bank, Development Research Group. Data are based on primary household survey data obtained from government statistical agencies and World Bank country departments. Data for high-income economies are from the Luxembourg Income Study database. For more information and methodology, please see PovcalNet (http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm).; ; The World Bank’s internationally comparable poverty monitoring database now draws on income or detailed consumption data from more than one thousand six hundred household surveys across 164 countries in six regions and 25 other high income countries (industrialized economies). While income distribution data are published for all countries with data available, poverty data are published for low- and middle-income countries and countries eligible to receive loans from the World Bank (such as Chile) and recently graduated countries (such as Estonia) only. See PovcalNet (http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/WhatIsNew.aspx) for definitions of geographical regions and industrialized countries.

Belgium BE: Proportion of People Living Below 50 Percent Of Median Income: % data was reported at 8.100 % in 2021. This records an increase from the previous number of 7.900 % for 2020. Belgium BE: Proportion of People Living Below 50 Percent Of Median Income: % data is updated yearly, averaging 9.100 % from Dec 1985 (Median) to 2021, with 25 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 10.500 % in 2015 and a record low of 6.000 % in 1985. Belgium BE: Proportion of People Living Below 50 Percent Of Median Income: % data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Belgium – Table BE.World Bank.WDI: Social: Poverty and Inequality. The percentage of people in the population who live in households whose per capita income or consumption is below half of the median income or consumption per capita. The median is measured at 2017 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) using the Poverty and Inequality Platform (http://www.pip.worldbank.org). For some countries, medians are not reported due to grouped and/or confidential data. The reference year is the year in which the underlying household survey data was collected. In cases for which the data collection period bridged two calendar years, the first year in which data were collected is reported.;World Bank, Poverty and Inequality Platform. Data are based on primary household survey data obtained from government statistical agencies and World Bank country departments. Data for high-income economies are mostly from the Luxembourg Income Study database. For more information and methodology, please see http://pip.worldbank.org.;;The World Bank’s internationally comparable poverty monitoring database now draws on income or detailed consumption data from more than 2000 household surveys across 169 countries. See the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) for details (www.pip.worldbank.org).

United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments: Wage and salary payments was 7271.00000 Mil. of $ in April of 2025, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments: Wage and salary payments reached a record high of 7952.00000 in July of 2024 and a record low of 2945.00000 in January of 2010. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments: Wage and salary payments - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on November of 2025.

United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments to the rest of the world: Excluding imputations was 1069.19300 Bil. of $ in January of 2022, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments to the rest of the world: Excluding imputations reached a record high of 1069.19300 in January of 2022 and a record low of 0.11500 in January of 1933. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments to the rest of the world: Excluding imputations - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on December of 2025.

United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments: Wage and salary payments was 30.23600 Bil. of $ in April of 2025, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments: Wage and salary payments reached a record high of 30.23600 in April of 2025 and a record low of 1.71300 in July of 1988. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for United States - Current payments to the rest of the world: Income payments: Wage and salary payments - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on November of 2025.