We can rarely measure or question the scale of wealth inequality in the world, it is one of the reasons why we underestimate the wealth of billionaires. In this case I come to the subject to make a data visualization in Tableau software that gives us quick answers and questions us thoroughly about this reality: the gap is growing and we are spectators.
The media and networks sell us the topic as a competition of fortunes and egos to find out who is the richest person in the world, we consume it as just another piece of data. But the insights presented by contrasting the figures could give us another perspective, a starting point for comparison and reflection.
Development
This DataViz is half challenge and half product of learning in data analysis with the free version of Tableau Online, at first the goal is to analyze the variables in the data, know what questions I want to solve and create a dashboard as a visual analysis for the end user.
The questions in the first instance are:
- What is the ranking of the richest people in the world ?
- Which are the countries with the most billionaires ?
- How many women are in the ranking ?
- What is the ranking of wealth categories by country?
- What is the total accumulation of wealth per country?
- Which of these billionaires have accumulated their wealth by themselves and how many inherited it? What is their correlation among those who support philanthropy?
I divided the dashboard into two analysis sections in Tableau Public, and nimbly illustrated its header in Figma software. I had a lot of fun and reinforced the basic data analysis with the different discrete and continuous variables.
You can view the interactive dashboard at: π
Clearly, data varies every day (and this is an academic exercise), I share some answers:
- According to the data used, Elon Musk snatched from Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault, the first position as the richest person in the world with 219 billion dollars, this due to the rise of his companies Tesla Motors and SpaceX.
- Eight of the top 10 billionaires are from the United States, the region where the largest number of rich people in the world are concentrated.
- Francoise Bettencourt, of the L’OrΓ©al empire, is the first woman in the ranking, occupying the fourteenth position with a fortune of US$74,800 million.
- The sector where wealth accumulates the most is technology, where in the U.S. it represents US$1,459.2 billion.
- Warren Buffett, who occupies the fifth position in the overall ranking, is the person who has the highest score as a philanthropist and is directly responsible for his fortune, compared to Ted Turner who follows him in score but is an heir.
In the end, it is inevitable to start questioning the unimaginable perception of wealth inequality. We normalize the figures and although many people prefer not to be compared to others, contrasting the figures or seeing ourselves reflected graphically in a data visualization could help us.
Then, putting this wealth in perspective by comparing it to some familiar things, would be the best way to show what could be solved with a small percentage, something I found in Matt Korostoff’s DataViz “A pixel of wealth – Wealth shown to scale” where by a scrolling navigation to the right (Every 10 pixels you scroll is US$5 million) we can size Jeff Bezos’ wealth (US$185 billion – Updated as of April 3, 2021) compared to other figures found, for example:
US$185 billion vs.
- All the money you will earn in your lifetime from the day you are born until the day you die (about US$ 1.7 million).
- Annual cost of medical care for a family of four.
- Annual cost of chemotherapy for all cancer patients (US$9 billion).
- Lifetime earnings of a physician, on average (US$ 6.7 million).
- Lifetime earnings of a lawyer, on average (US$ 4 million).
- Lifetime earnings of a hedge fund manager, on average (US$ 84 million).
Even the fortunes of the very rich are dwarfed by the incomprehensible wealth of the 0.0001%.
- BeyoncΓ©’s Wealth ($400 million)
- Apple CEO Tim Cook’s wealth ($625 million)
I was impressed by this stat: on July 20, 2020, Jeff Bezos made $13 billion in a single day. π±
If you have the time, I recommend you to browse it from beginning to end, the side scroll is intentional to perceive the magnitude of comparison. Against it has that it is not updated, but the result in its intention does not change, to this we add that the content is on GitHub and already has translation to 14 languages in its branches. π
https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
Its development is done in Html5, CSS, JS and MarkDown.
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I found this article by Choi Nawon on Medium about the Forbes Billionaires Breakdown where he shows his process in data visualization and information design.
And then this article from the Spanish newspaper El PaΓs where they talk about how billionaires squander their money.
Data
There are several online sources and monitors that measure the billionaire index, for example Bloomberg publishes the daily ranking of the 500 richest people in the world, this is their methodology: “Each net worth figure is updated every business day after the close of trading in New York. Holdings in publicly traded companies are valued using the most recent closing share price. Valuations are translated into U.S. dollars at the current exchange rate.”
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I thank Line Ton Than who motivated me to make this dashboard π and to get the Tableau Data Analyst / Specialist Desktop course certification. π
Needless to say, this is an academic exercise, with multiple errors and open to comments that will help me improve in data analysis and visualization.