Income Quintile Share Ratio

[isha]

Income Quintile Share Ratio is calculated as the ratio of total income received by the 20 % of the population with the highest income (the top quintile) to that received by the 20 % of the population with the lowest income (the bottom quintile).

This is the Eurostat latest calculation on that.

Income Quintile Share Ratio.jpg (168.24 KiB) Viewed 168 times

I would not normally be able to understand this, but I saw the explanation. It means that the top 20% of earners in Ireland earn 15.5 times the earnings of the bottom 20% of people in Ireland. And compared to other European countries, we are much more unbalanced.

I have seen arguments that this is before taxation and social transfers. Yes, it is. But it is so for every country on the chart.

I think this is deeply unfair and offensive. It also speaks to the mismatch between the opinions of the wealthy elite in our country and those of working class and middle class people as evidenced by recent political opinion polls. We live in a neo-feudalist system, especially here in Ireland.

[isha]

PS Those figures that look like 8 are zeros.