Murray Leibbrandt together with Anda David from the Agence Francaise de Développement (AFD) and Werner Ruch from StatsSA, wrote an op-ed for City Press which was published late this month. The op-ed explains the policy importance of the Inequality Trends in South Africa – A multidimensional diagnostic of inequality report, the collaboration behind it and the datasets used in compiling the report. Drawing on some monetary and non-monetary measures of inequality from the report, the op-ed gives examples of the levels and trends of inequality in South Africa in recent years, as well as some important nuances about these and what they reveal. Given that the findings reveal a complex picture, the authors suggest complementing the standard Gini coefficient measure of inequality with the Palma ratio, which measures the ratio of the richest 10% of the population’s share in gross national income over the poorest 40%’s share. Read the op-ed.