US Counties With the Highest Gini Index of Income Inequality

3,222 US counties ranked by gini index of income inequality, from highest to lowest. First are Harding County, NM (0.71), Loving County, TX (0.658) and Union County, NM (0.637). The middle one of the 3,222 has 0.445.

What this measures

How unequally household income is shared, on a scale from 0 to 1. Zero would mean every household has the same income. One would mean a single household has all of it. US counties run from about 0.32 to 0.60. It is measured on money income before taxes and government payments, so US figures sit above countries that measure it after taxes and payments. Source: Census ACS 5-year.

For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.

The 100 highest counties

Every state, highest first

Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.

More on gini index of income inequality

• US Counties With the Lowest Gini Index of Income Inequality
• Gini index of income inequality by US county: map by year and what it goes with

A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.