strong household income growth in the nordics has lifted incomes from the bottom to the top of the distribution from the mid s to figure this contrast with developments in germany and the united states were stagnating incomes at the bottom of the income distribution imply that material living standards have improved very little relative to the mid s national sources report an increase around four gini points from to statistics norway but the applied household income definition is not fully comparable with the one used for oecd figures see causa et al