Income inequality is a hot topic now, and has been for decades. But, where does interest in this topic come from? Do people waiting in line at Walmart notice how much stuff the cart in front of them has, and start to seethe with anger at the extent of income inequality, and try to search out its roots? Do they listen to politicians talk about income inequality, and grow angry at the injustice inherent in the system, and so research how to combat it?
I have no idea. But, I did notice something interesting recently. Google Trends, one of my favorite tools for seeing general interest in a subject by seeing how frequently people search for that subject, suggests that interest in (searching for) income inequality is very cyclical:
What cycle is that? If you take the raw data, and break it down by month, here is the average Google Trends Index per month:
It looks pretty clear a lot of the searching for information about the topic of income inequality is coming from searchers working within the confines of the normal academic year. Just as they search for information about “Karl Marx”, the “double helix”, or “Adam Smith”, or, “what is a noun”, search for income inequality appears to be driven mostly be academic pursuits.
