We recently compiled a report on the 30 Countries with the Most Income Equality and in this article we will look at the country with the highest income equality.
Global Income Distribution
Global inequalities are in bad shape and appear to be getting worse overall. Disparities today are enormous and the impacts of global pandemics and wars have affected income equality in many countries. In addition, high interest rates and inflation have also increased income disparities. According to the International Monetary Fund, global inflation stands at around 5.9% in 2024, which is quite high despite dropping from 6.8% in 2023. Moreover, high income tax rates in Europe immensely impact income equality across the region.
Countries have more disparities in wealth equality compared to income equality. The majority of wealth inequality is concentrated in Africa. Countries including Lesotho, Zambia, South Africa, Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Namibia, and Nigeria are leading African countries with the highest wealth inequality. According to the World Inequality Report 2022, the share of the bottom 50% of the world, excluding Europe, in total earnings is less than 15%. Whereas, the same share of the world’s 50% bottom population is less than 10% in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the MENAS region. An average individual adult in 2021 was earning around $23,380 per year, while the average adult possessed $102,600. On average the richest top 10% of the world earns around $122,100 per year compared to $3,920 earned by the poorest half of the global population.
On the other hand, the world’s richest 10% people share over 40% of the total global earnings, and in some regions, it is around a whopping 60%. The bottom 50% of the people have a mere 2% share of the total global wealth against the 76% global wealth share owned by the top 10% of the population. The wealth of the top 1% of people in the world is growing rapidly compared to the rest of the global population. The top 1% gained 38% of the global increase in wealth compared to only 2% wealth share obtained by the bottom 50% between 1995 and 2021. According to the IMF, income inequalities are not much better and the richest 10% take over 52% of all income, as of 2022. Whereas, the poorest half only obtain 8.5%. The top 35 poorest countries by GDP per capita in 2024 have an average GDP per capita of just over $900.
Small-scale businesses are one way to erase poverty. Some of the top easy-to-start small businesses that could elevate your income include print-on-demand services, dropshipping, virtual assistant services, mobile app testing, and launching a Newsletter, among others. These fields have high growth potential going forward and could help you earn good enough to fight against poverty.
However, countries with higher income equality have better job and business opportunities. Europe hosts the top countries with the highest average salaries in the world with Switzerland leading the list followed by Luxembourg and Denmark. The United States has the fourth highest average salary in the world with an average salary of $59,428. Luxembourg and Denmark have average salaries of around $75,316 and $71,268, respectively.
One of the Best Employers in the World
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is one of the largest employers and highest-paying companies in the world. Amazon.com, Inc. employs over 1.5 million full-time and part-time employees. The company operates in various areas but is mainly known for its gigantic e-commerce network. Apart from e-commerce, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is well-known for its cloud services offered by AWS, and over-the-top media service Amazon Prime Video, among many. Amazon.com, Inc.’s e-commerce platform accounts for 37.6% of total market sales, the highest market share of all e-commerce companies in the US. By 2027, experts expect the e-commerce market to grow over $7.9 trillion from an expected market value of $6.3 trillion in 2024, as per Forbes.
Amazon.com, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) cloud service platform, AWS, remains a dominant player in the cloud market. AWS has a staggering 50.1% market share followed by a 28% share of Google Cloud Platform and a 20% share of Microsoft Azure. According to HG’s 2023 Infrastructure as a Service Market Report, almost 2.38 million businesses are buying AWS cloud computing services, while the AWS customer growth rate is also the highest among the global cloud providers at 31%, as of 2023. Around 53% of all AWS customers are from North America, representing a total of 1.27 million customers, almost twice as many in the region compared to 2023. AWS is enhancing its platform through generative AI and AI modeling in machine learning. In addition, AWS has 240 fully featured services for computing, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning, AI, IoT, mobile, security, hybrid, media, and application development, deployment, and management.
Over the years, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has performed exceptionally well based on strong financials, backed mainly by its e-commerce and cloud businesses. Apart from these businesses, Amazon is advancing in other sectors such as advertising. Amazon’s Advertising business increased from $38 billion in 2022 to $47 billion in 2023, up by 24% year-over-year. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) increased its total revenue by 12% year-over-year from $514 billion in 2022 to $575 billion in 2023.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) provides a wide range of job opportunities and pays market-competitive salaries in a time of distress when companies like Tesla and Microsoft are laying off. With that said, let’s take a look at the list of countries with the most income equality.
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Our Methodology
To determine the countries with the most income equality, we used the Gini coefficient of countries. The Gini coefficient describes income inequality or wealth distribution. A Gini coefficient of 0 represents perfect equality and a Gini coefficient of 100 means perfect inequality. The data on the Gini coefficient is taken from Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Databook 2022. The countries with the most income equality are those with the least Gini coefficient and are ranked in descending order of their Gini coefficients.
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The Country with the Most Income Equality
1. Slovakia
Gini Coefficient: 50.5%
Slovakia, officially known as the Slovak Republic, has a Gini coefficient of 50.5% and a GDP per capita of $44,080. The country has a total population of around 5.4 million. More than 72% of the population is employed, while only 5.8% of people in Slovakia are unemployed. In 2024, the average wage in Slovakia is just under €30,000 per year. According to the World Inequality Database, the top 10% and bottom 50% population of the country have a pre-tax national income share of 26% and 25%, as of 2022, respectively. Slovakia ranks first on our list of the countries with the most income equality in 2024.
Curious to learn about other countries with the most income equality? Check out our report on the 30 Countries with the Most Income Equality.
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