>So how can you help? Well, I'm looking for a little technical
>support here. To make the second part work, it would be good to
>have data on the world distribution of income fine-grained enough to
>allow me to interpoate per capita incomes at specified percentile
>levels (17, 31, 44, 56, 67, 75, 83, 89, 94, and 97 to be exact). If
>that data is out there, I haven't seen it. I'm willing to go with
>relatively unrefined data (non-PPP adjusted, based on median
>national incomes, etc.) as long as I can use it to make a dirty
>ball-park interpolation.
World Bank economist Branko Milanovic has a paper on world income distribution <http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/research/workpapers.nsf/(allworkingpapers)/8DEA74BC10A97DCF8525683300663553?OpenDocument> that blends national household surveys into what he claims is the first true attempt at measuring the beast. Here's a percentile table (1993 figures, using PPP US$):
percentile income
5 238
10 318
15 373
20 432
25 496
30 586
35 658
40 742
45 883
50 1,044
55 1,165
60 1,505
65 1,857
70 2,327
75 3,006
80 4,508
85 6,563
90 9,110
95 13,241
99 24,447
So, world median income is about US$1,044. Someone with a poverty-level income in the U.S. is at the 95th percentile of world income.
Doug