Wikipedia

Median income

The median income is the income amount that divides a population into two groups, half having an income above that amount, and half having an income below that amount. The median can be calculated for household income, personal income or disposable income.

Measure

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The median income differs from the national average salary or GDP per capita due to the income distribution.[1] The median income is an economic indicator of the standard of living for the median person in a country.[2][3] Median income growth correlates with consumer confidence.[4] In line with the median voter theorem the median income growth is a democratic indicator of economic growth.[5]

The measurement of income from individuals and households, which is necessary to produce statistics such as the median, can pose challenges and can yield results inconsistent with aggregate national accounts data. For example, an academic study on the Census income data claims that when correcting for underreporting, U.S. median gross household income was 15% higher in 2010.[6]

Median equivalised household disposable income

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Annual median equivalised disposable income, in 2021, USD at PPP rates, by OECD country[7]

The median equivalised household disposable income is the median of the disposable income which is equivalised by dividing household income by the square root of household size; the square root is used to acknowledge that people sharing accommodation benefit from pooling at least some of their living costs.[8][9] The median equivalised disposable income for individual countries corrected for purchasing power parity (PPP) for 2021 in United States dollars is shown in the below table.[7]

Median equivalised household disposable income
Location 2021 (USD PPP)
Luxembourg49,748
United States46,625
Norway41,621
 Switzerland39,698
Canada39,388
Austria37,715
Belgium37,110
Iceland36,853
Australia36,835
Netherlands35,891
Germany35,537
Denmark34,061
Sweden33,472
New Zealand32,158
South Korea31,882
Ireland31,392
Finland30,727
France30,622
Slovenia28,698
Italy27,949
United Kingdom26,884
Spain26,630
Estonia26,075
Poland24,264
Czech Republic23,802
Israel21,366
Japan21,282
Lithuania20,856
Latvia19,908
Croatia19,680
Portugal19,147
Greece16,774
Slovak Republic16,410
Romania15,898
Hungary15,361
Bulgaria14,990
Turkey10,341
Chile10,101
Costa Rica8,915
Mexico6,090
South Africa6,068

Median Daily Disposable Income per person

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Map of daily median income in USD (2021 PPP, Poverty and Inequality Platform, last available year)[10]

The following table shows the daily median per person income after taxes and transfers according to the Poverty and Inequality Platform of the World Bank.[10][11]

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ Nolan, Brian; Roser, Max; Thewissen, Stefan (September 2019). "GDP Per Capita Versus Median Household Income: What Gives Rise to the Divergence Over Time and how does this Vary Across OECD Countries?". Review of Income and Wealth. 65 (3): 465–494. doi:10.1111/roiw.12362. ISSN 0034-6586 – via Business Source Ultimate.
  2. ↑ Birdsall, Nancy; Meyer, Christian J. (2015). "The Median is the Message: A Good Enough Measure of Material Wellbeing and Shared Development Progress". Global Policy. 6 (4): 343–357. doi:10.1111/1758-5899.12239. ISSN 1758-5880. Retrieved 2026-03-18.
  3. ↑ Nolan, Brian; Roser, Max; Thewissen, Stefan (2018). "GDP Per Capita Versus Median Household Income: What Gives Rise to the Divergence Over Time and how does this Vary Across OECD Countries?". Review of Income and Wealth. 65 (3): 465–494. doi:10.1111/roiw.12362. ISSN 0034-6586.
  4. ↑ Nordhaus, William D (1998). "Quality Change in Price Indexes". Journal of Economic Perspectives. 12 (1): 59–68. doi:10.1257/jep.12.1.59. ISSN 0895-3309. Retrieved 2026-04-17.
  5. ↑ Aitken, Andrew; Weale, Martin (2020). "A Democratic Measure of Household Income Growth: Theory and Application to the United Kingdom". Economica. 87 (347): 589–610. doi:10.1111/ecca.12329. ISSN 0013-0427. Retrieved 2026-03-25.
  6. ↑ Fixler, Dennis; Johnson, David S. (September 30, 2012). Accounting for the Distribution of Income in the U.S. National Accounts (PDF). NBER Conference on Research in Income and Wealth. Table 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 22, 2020.
  7. 1 2 OECD (20 June 2024). Society at a Glance 2024: OECD Social Indicators, Figure 4.1 Median income varies by a factor eight across OECD countries. OECD.
  8. ↑ "Income Distribution Database".
  9. ↑ "OECD Data Explorer, Income distribution database, Median, Disposable Income".
  10. 1 2 "Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP): Percentiles". World Bank. 2026. Welfare type: Income. Retrieved 2026-03-21.
  11. ↑ "Median income or consumption per day, 1963 to 2026". Our World in data. 2026. Retrieved 2026-04-19.
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