, Columnist
The Ultra-Rich Lost Out in the Last Recession
A new economic study finds that income inequality across countries declined between 2008 and 2013.
An Occupy Boston protest in 2011.
Photographer: Rick Friedman/Corbis HistoricalThis article is for subscribers only.
The “elephant chart” has been the most influential graph of the past decade in economics.
It showed that in the 20 years before the financial crisis, global income growth largely benefitted two groups of people: the middle classes of emerging markets, such as China, and the ultra-rich around the world. Meanwhile, the middle and lower classes of Western Europe and North America saw their incomes stagnate.