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. It may differ from the mean (or average) income. Both of these are ways of understanding income distribution.
Median income can be calculated by household income, by personal income, or for specific demographic groups.
The measurement of income from individuals and households, which is necessary to produce statistics such as the median, can pose challenges and 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 (table 3).
When taxes and mandatory contributions are subtracted from income, the result is called net or disposable income.
Median equivalised disposable income
This section is an excerpt from Disposable household and per capita income § Median equivalised disposable income.
The median equivalised disposable income is the median of the disposable income which is equivalised by dividing 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. The median equivalised disposable income for individual countries corrected for purchasing power parity (PPP) for 2021 in United States dollars is shown in below table.
| Location | 2021 (USD PPP) |
|---|---|
 Luxembourg |
49,748 |
 United States |
48,625 |
 Norway |
41,621 |
 Switzerland |
39,698 |
 Canada |
39,388 |
 Austria |
37,715 |
 Belgium |
37,110 |
 Iceland |
36,853 |
 Australia |
36,835 |
 Netherlands |
35,891 |
 Germany |
35,537 |
 Denmark |
34,061 |
 Sweden |
33,472 |
 New Zealand |
32,158 |
 South Korea |
31,882 |
 Ireland |
31,392 |
 Finland |
30,727 |
 France |
30,622 |
 Slovenia |
28,698 |
 Italy |
27,949 |
 United Kingdom |
26,884 |
 Spain |
26,630 |
 Estonia |
26,075 |
 Poland |
24,264 |
 Czech Republic |
23,802 |
 Israel |
21,366 |
 Japan |
21,282 |
 Lithuania |
20,856 |
 Latvia |
19,908 |
 Croatia |
19,680 |
 Portugal |
19,147 |
 Greece |
16,774 |
 Slovak Republic |
16,410 |
 Hungary |
15,361 |
 Romania |
15,898 |
 Bulgaria |
14,990 |
 Turkey |
10,341 |
 Chile |
10,101 |
 Costa Rica |
8,915 |
 Mexico |
6,090 |
 South Africa |
6,068 |
See also
- Disposable household and per capita income
- List of countries by average wage
- List of countries by wealth per adult
- Income distribution
- List of countries by GNI per capita growth
- List of countries by real GDP per capita growth
References
- 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. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 22, 2020.
- ^ 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.
- "Income Distribution Database".
- "OECD Data Explorer, Income distribution database, Median, Disposable Income".
| Economic classification of countries | |||||
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| Three/Four-World Model | |||||
| Gross domestic product (GDP) |
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| Gross national income (GNI) | |||||
| Wages | |||||
| Wealth | |||||
| Other national accounts | |||||
| Human development | |||||
| Digital divide | |||||
| Net international investment position (NIIP) | |||||
| Lists of countries by GDP rankings | |
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| Nominal | |
| Purchasing power parity (PPP) | |
| Growth rate | |
| Gross national income (GNI) | |
| Countries by region |
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| Subnational divisions |
*Top country subdivisions by GDP *Top country subdivisions by GDP per capita *Top country metropolitan by GDP |