Charts: Some countries are more unequal than others

The OECD is out with its latest data on income inequality in member countries and it’s a pretty grim picture. “In the first three years of the crisis, the inequality in income from work and capital increased as much as in the previous twelve, the report notes: 

The increase in inequality between 2007 and 2010 was been felt more in some countries than in others. As the following chart shows, the increase in Ireland and Spain was shocking, while inequality actually narrowed in Poland, the Netherlands, the Czehch Republic, and Germany:

At the same time that incomes have become more unequal, overall they’ve also been falling. The Iceland bar in the following graph is pretty astonishing — the drop in employment income is larger than every other country’s drop in total income. Poland, again, comes out looking pretty good:

Poverty rates increased overall — about 11 percent in the OECD as of 2010 —  affecting households with children particularly hard. Poverty actually decreased among the elderly. 

In other words, inequality is increasing even in measures of inequality.