When differences in income widen, trust disappears. The above
chart shows how unequal societies have lower percentages of
people who trust others in their communities. Wilkinson &
Pickett found that using a measure of trust (International data
on trust from the European and World Values Survey), that the
differences between countries were large. If you look at the
chart you will see a cluster of Scandinavian countries and the
Netherlands which score high on levels of trust. This group of
countries also appears to be ‘Low’ in ‘Income Inequality’. As a
group they register at levels of trust between 60 and 80% of
people agreeing that others can be trusted. The U.S.A. registers
on the other side of the chart at only 40% of the people
agreeing that others can be trusted. The U.S.A. also scored
‘High’ on ‘Income inequality’. For review, here is a chart
comparing modern ‘democracies’ for their level of income
inequality: The U.S.A. is second from the bottom with a more
than eight times richer top 20% than the poores