Measures and meaning in comparisons of wealth equlality

How communities distribute wealth is one aspect for judging the performance of economic systems. Many inequality measures exist. Precentiles, Gini coefficients, and statistical pattern measures each rest on different concepts about what equality and inequality mean. Wealth distribution data from 55 communities are compared relative to Gini coefficient, kurtosis, and coefficient of variation. These data show no community with perfect equality. Most communities have some inequality. The general pattern is for wealth inequality to increase with the development of market and mechanized industrial economies.