Oswego Ranked Third for Income Equality

Income inequality has been a hot button issue for some time and NerdWallet did some digging to see which cities have the largest and smallest amount of income inequality.

To find out, NerdWallet used the Gini index, also known as the gini coefficient. The index measures the extent to which income distribution differs from perfect equality.

A Gini index of zero, indicating perfect equality, would mean that every household in the U.S. had the same income. On the opposite end of the spectrum, an index of 100 would mean that a single household received the entire income of the country. The Gini index for the U.S. is 48 before the redistributive effects of taxes and transfers, such as Social Security and welfare. U.S. cities span a broad range on the index — from 27 to 63.

Topping the list for most equal city is Romeoville, which has a Gini index of 30.36. Oswego came in third at 31.69 and Plainfield ranked 12 at 33.08.