As an illustration, the triangles show that Portugal and the United States achieve broadly the same reduction in inequality through transfers, both being below the OECD average. The bars show that, in the United States, the limited reduction in inequality is due to the small size of transfers (compared with the OECD average) whereas in Portugal it is attributable to their low progressivity (compared with the OECD average). Data for France and Ireland refer to the mid-2000s.