I assume you wrapped your head around it by now, but I'll explain it anyway.
Bottom right; barely 5% of the world population is equal or richer than the average US citizen. 20% of the world population has at least 25% of the average US citizen, or 80% of the world has less than than 25% of the average US citizen.
Note that a graph of the US alone would look about the same.
I think its a highly informative graph, that you will not get at a glance. Another mistake they noted in the article:
"Another odd thing is the choice of colour. In an attempt to emulate Labour’s colour scheme, we used three shades of orange/red to distinguish between Jeremy Corbyn, other MPs and parties/groups. We don’t explain this. While the logic behind the colours might be obvious to a lot of readers, it perhaps makes little sense for those less familiar with British politics."
I think it's a bonus if you can make a graph have extra layers of information for the informed reader. In literature this his highly regarded. Why not in data visualization?
> Bottom right; barely 5% of the world population is equal or richer than the average US citizen.
But GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income or wealth, it's a measure of production of a country. Since it not a measure that can be applied to people individually, it seems ambiguous what it means for a given person in the world to be "above a given % of US GDP per person."
US GDP per capita in 2017 is about $60k. What does it mean for an individual in the world to be "above" this? Their personal income in a year? Their total wealth?
My best guess is that this graph considers a person "above" this if they live in a country that has a per capita GDP above $60k (at purchasing-power parity). So really it's a comparison of countries and their per capita GDP, weighted by population.
So I think the bottom right is actually saying "5% of the world population lives in a country that produces more per person than the US." It doesn't say much of anything about how rich individuals are.
The disparity between the (very) rich few and the many poor would result in the share of people above and below the hypothetical "average" person not being 50/50.
Bottom right; barely 5% of the world population is equal or richer than the average US citizen. 20% of the world population has at least 25% of the average US citizen, or 80% of the world has less than than 25% of the average US citizen.
Note that a graph of the US alone would look about the same.
I think its a highly informative graph, that you will not get at a glance. Another mistake they noted in the article:
"Another odd thing is the choice of colour. In an attempt to emulate Labour’s colour scheme, we used three shades of orange/red to distinguish between Jeremy Corbyn, other MPs and parties/groups. We don’t explain this. While the logic behind the colours might be obvious to a lot of readers, it perhaps makes little sense for those less familiar with British politics."
I think it's a bonus if you can make a graph have extra layers of information for the informed reader. In literature this his highly regarded. Why not in data visualization?