EDIT: I am retracting this story because it appears that most of the searches for inequality are to do with mathematical inequalities, not inequality in the economic sense. There is some evidence of rising interest in economic inequality, but it looks quite different. See here and here for example.

Over the last decade and a half, interest in inequality among Americans as measured by Google searches on the topic inequality as a proportion of total Google searches has increased, but there’s a heavy seasonal trend:

Interest in inequality reliably peaks in September, with a smaller mini local peak in February. Check it out here.

And here’s the equivalent global trend:

Check it out at Google trends here. Notice that the peak here is more spread out over September, October and November.

Here they are with a moving average of 12 months to remove the seasonal pattern:

While inequality isn’t a good thing, hopefully rising interest in inequality is. As for the seasonal variation, give me your best explanation in the comments.