The OECD Income Distribution database (IDD) has been developed to benchmark and monitor countries' performance in the field of income inequality and poverty. It contains a number of standardised indicators based on the central concept of "equivalised household disposable income", i.e. the total income received by the households less the current taxes and transfers they pay, adjusted for household size with an equivalence scale. While household income is only one of the factors shaping people's economic well-being, it is also the one for which comparable data for all OECD countries are most common. Income distribution has a long-standing tradition among household-level statistics, with regular data collections going back to the 1980s (and sometimes earlier) in many OECD countries.

Achieving comparability in this field is a challenge, as national practices differ widely in terms of concepts, measures, and statistical sources. In order to maximise international comparability as well as inter-temporal consistency of data, the IDD data collection and compilation process is based on a common set of statistical conventions (e.g. on income concepts and components). The information obtained by the OECD through a network of national data providers, via a standardized questionnaire, is based on national sources that are deemed to be most representative for each country.

Small changes in estimates between years should be treated with caution as they may not be statistically significant.

Fore more details, please refer to: https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/IDD-Metadata.pdf and https://www.oecd.org/social/income-distribution-database.htm

In 2023, the United States had the highest gross household disposable income per capita in OECD countries adjusted for purchasing power parity. Their disposable income per capita was over ****** U.S. dollars. Luxembourg followed in second with around ****** U.S. dollars, with Switzerland in third.

This statistic shows the household net disposable income in OECD countries in 2018. In 2018, households in the U.S. had a net adjusted disposable income of about ****** U.S. dollars.

This dataset accompanies the tables ‘Household income and saving in the National Accounts: distributions by income quintile’ and ‘Household consumption in the National Accounts: distributions by income quintile’ and presents the number of households, individuals, and consumption units per equivalised disposable income quintile, as well as the sociodemographic characteristics of the households and the individuals in these households in each of the income quintiles.

   The following socio-demographic breakdowns are shown in the table: the number of households in each quintile by household type and home ownership status; and the number of individuals belonging to the households in each quintile by age, sex, labour market status and education level. <br><br>

   In this table, households are grouped into income quintiles on the basis of their equivalised disposable income, ranked from lowest to highest, i.e., the first quintile represents the 20% households with the lowest equivalised disposable income and the fifth quintile the 20% households with the highest. Equivalisation means that results for each household have been recalculated on the basis of its consumption needs, in order to produce comparable results across households of different size and composition. <br><br>

   Results are presented in national currency and as averages per household and per consumption unit (you can choose these from the ‘Unit of measure’ filter). Results per consumption unit are obtained by dividing each household’s result by the number of consumption units, reflecting its consumption needs, for example by applying the standard OECD-modified equivalence scale, counting the first adult as 1, any additional people aged 14 and over as 0.5 and all children under 14 as 0.3.<br><br>

   The default view of this table is for a single country (‘Reference area’ filter) and single year (‘Time period’ filter). In cases where countries appear to be greyed-out, data may be available for earlier years, and these can be selected by selecting a different start and end year in the ‘Time period’ filter. Users are recommended to select one country at a time to obtain a comprehensive overview of the distributional results for that country for a given period of time. Alternatively, you may select a specific item from one of the socio-demographic breakdowns filters to make cross-country comparisons. <br><br>


   For more information on the (compilation of) these results, please see the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/sdd/na/household-distributional-results-in-line-with-national-accounts-experimental-statistics.htm"> webpage on household distributional results </a>.

Data series for income, consumption and savings produced as part of the OECD exercise on household distribution. Also contains socio-demographic information.

This dataset accompanies the tables ‘Household income and saving in the National Accounts: distributions by income quintile’ and ‘Household consumption in the National Accounts: distributions by income quintile’ and presents the number of individuals belonging to households in each quintile broken down by sex (males and females).

   Households are grouped into income quintiles on the basis of their equivalised disposable income, ranked from lowest to highest, i.e., the first quintile represents the 20% households with the lowest equivalised disposable income and the fifth quintile the 20% households with the highest. Equivalisation means that results for each household have been recalculated on the basis of its consumption needs, in order to produce comparable results across households of different size and composition. <br><br>

   The default view of this table is for a single country (‘Reference area’ filter) and single year (‘Time period’ filter). In cases where countries appear to be greyed-out, data may be available for earlier years, and these can be selected by selecting a different start and end year in the ‘Time period’ filter. <br><br>


   For more information on the (compilation of) these results, please see the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/sdd/na/household-distributional-results-in-line-with-national-accounts-experimental-statistics.htm"> webpage on household distributional results </a>.

This table contains estimates of Incomes (Median Equivalised, Median Disposable), Poverty (using the proportion of people below a half median equivalised disposable household income poverty line), Inequality (using the Gini coefficient) and financial stress (Had no access to emergency money, Can't afford a night out once a fortnight and Leaving low income from benefit). Leaving low income from benefit is the gross earning (expressed as a percentage of average full time earnings) required for a family to reach a 60% of median household income threshold from benefits of last resort (State welfare payments or income support). All estimates were derived using a spatial microsimulation model which used the Survey of Income and Housing and the 2011 Census data as base datasets, so they are synthetic estimates. This table forms part of the AURIN Social Indicators project.

This table presents household income and saving from the national accounts broken down by income quintile. It includes primary income, disposable income, adjusted disposable income and saving. Primary income is the income that households receive as a result of their involvement in production. It includes gross operating surplus (in the case of households, imputed income from owning your own house), gross mixed income (profits of the self-employed) and compensation of employees (wages and salaries and employers’ social contributions) as well as net interest, distributed income of corporations (dividends) and rent. Disposable income is the income that households receive after taxes on income and wealth, social contributions and benefits, non-life insurance premiums and claims, and other current transfers like remittances. Adjusted disposable income is derived from disposable income, but also includes the value of social transfers in kind received by households. Saving represents that part of disposable income (adjusted for the change in pension entitlements) that is not spent on final consumption goods and services.

In this table, households are grouped into income quintiles on the basis of their equivalised disposable income, ranked from lowest to highest, i.e., the first quintile represents the 20% households with the lowest equivalised disposable income and the fifth quintile the 20% households with the highest. Equivalisation means that results for each household have been recalculated on the basis of its consumption needs, in order to produce comparable results across households of different size and composition.

Results are presented in national currency and as averages per household and per consumption unit (you can choose these from the ‘Unit of measure’ filter). Results per consumption unit (equivalised income and saving) are obtained by dividing each household’s result by the number of consumption units, reflecting its consumption needs, for example by applying the standard OECD-modified equivalence scale, counting the first adult as 1, any additional people aged 14 and over as 0.5 and all children under 14 as 0.3.

The default view of this table is for a single country (‘Reference area’ filter) and single year (‘Time period’ filter). In cases where countries appear to be greyed-out, data may be available for earlier years, and these can be selected by selecting a different start and end year in the ‘Time period’ filter. Users are recommended to select one country at a time to obtain a comprehensive overview of the distributional results for that country for a given period of time. Alternatively, you may select a specific item from the ‘Transaction’ filter to make cross-country comparisons.

For more information on the (compilation of) these results, please see the webpage on household distributional results .

The aggregate house price to income ratio of OECD countries from 2005 to 2023 increased overall. In 2023, the aggregate house price to income ratio of the OECD countries amounted to 117.4 percent, which means that since 2015, the growth of house prices had outpaced income growth by 17 percent.This ratio was calculated by dividing nominal house prices by nominal disposable income per head. The house price to income ratio of OECD countries varies strongly.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Social and Welfare Statistics (previously Social Expenditure Database) available via the UK Data Service includes the following databases:

The OECD Social Expenditure Database (SOCX) has been developed in order to serve a growing need for indicators of social policy. It includes reliable and internationally comparable statistics on public and mandatory and voluntary private social expenditure at programme level. SOCX provides a unique tool for monitoring trends in aggregate social expenditure and analysing changes in its composition. The main social policy areas are as follows: old age, survivors, incapacity-related benefits, health, family, active labour market programmes, unemployment, housing, and other social policy areas.

The Income Distribution database contains comparable data on the distribution of household income, providing both a point of reference for judging the performance of any country and an opportunity to assess the role of common drivers as well as drivers that are country-specific. They also allow governments to draw on the experience of different countries in order to learn "what works best" in narrowing income disparities and poverty. But achieving comparability in this field is also difficult, as national practices differ widely in terms of concepts, measures, and statistical sources.

The Child Wellbeing dataset compare 21 policy-focussed measures of child well-being in six areas, chosen to cover the major aspects of children’s lives: material well being; housing and environment; education; health and safety; risk behaviours; and quality of school life.

The Better Life Index: There is more to life than the cold numbers of GDP and economic statistics. This Index allows you to compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.

The Social Expenditure data were first provided by the UK Data Service in March 2004.

This dataset accompanies the tables ‘Household income and saving in the National Accounts: distributions by income quintile’ and ‘Household consumption in the National Accounts: distributions by income quintile’ and presents the number of individuals belonging to households in each quintile broken down by the highest level of education achieved.

   Households are grouped into income quintiles on the basis of their equivalised disposable income, ranked from lowest to highest, i.e., the first quintile represents the 20% households with the lowest equivalised disposable income and the fifth quintile the 20% households with the highest. Equivalisation means that results for each household have been recalculated on the basis of its consumption needs, in order to produce comparable results across households of different size and composition. <br><br>

   The education levels are derived on the basis of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) which distinguishes the following categories: 0) less than primary education, 1) primary education, 2) lower secondary education, 3) upper secondary education, 4) post-secondary non-tertiary education, 5) short-cycle tertiary education, 6) bachelor’s or equivalent level, 7) master’s or equivalent level, 8) doctoral or equivalent level. <br><br>

   The default view of this table is for a single country (‘Reference area’ filter) and single year (‘Time period’ filter). In cases where countries appear to be greyed-out, data may be available for earlier years, and these can be selected by selecting a different start and end year in the ‘Time period’ filter. <br><br>

   For more information on the (compilation of) these results, please see the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/sdd/na/household-distributional-results-in-line-with-national-accounts-experimental-statistics.htm"> webpage on household distributional results </a>.

Japanese households had an average annual income of approximately *** million Japanese yen in 2024, constituting an increase of *** percent compared to the previous year. Stagnant wages and regional income disparitiesHousehold income refers to the combined gross income of all household members aged 15 years and older, regardless of relation. While the average number of household members was **** in 2022, there were only about **** earners per household. A look at the time series reveals that the average income stagnated in the last ten years. Japan’s well-beingOften cited with family income and per capita income, the annual average household income is a useful economic indicator of a country’s living standard and individual wealth. In terms of well-being, Japan’s performance is mixed compared to other OECD countries. While low labor market insecurity and a high employment rate indicate Japan is performing well relative to other OECD countries, average earnings, as well as household net adjusted disposable income were lower than the OECD average.

Out of all OECD countries, Cost Rica had the highest poverty rate as of 2022, at over 20 percent. The country with the second highest poverty rate was the United States, with 18 percent. On the other end of the scale, Czechia had the lowest poverty rate at 6.4 percent, followed by Denmark.

The significance of the OECD

The OECD, or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, was founded in 1948 and is made up of 38 member countries. It seeks to improve the economic and social well-being of countries and their populations. The OECD looks at issues that impact people’s everyday lives and proposes policies that can help to improve the quality of life.

Poverty in the United States

In 2022, there were nearly 38 million people living below the poverty line in the U.S.. About one fourth of the Native American population lived in poverty in 2022, the most out of any ethnicity. In addition, the rate was higher among young women than young men. It is clear that poverty in the United States is a complex, multi-faceted issue that affects millions of people and is even more complex to solve.

This dataset is the basis of the work titled “The short-run relationship between inequality and growth: evidence from OECD regions during the Great Recession”, published in Regional Studies (DOI: 10.1080/00343404.2018.1476752). This paper provides evidence on the relationship between income inequality and economic growth in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regions during the decade 2003–13. It combines household survey data and macroeconomic databases, covering over 200 comparable regions in 15 OECD countries. The econometric results, based on two alternative sets of instruments, highlight a general negative association between inequalities and economic growth since the start of the economic crisis. This relationship is sensitive to the type of urban structure. Higher inequalities seem to be more detrimental for growth in regions characterized by medium to large-sized cities, while regions characterized by small cities and rural areas are less affected.

This dataset accompanies the tables ‘Household income and saving in the National Accounts: distributions by income quintile’ and ‘Household consumption in the National Accounts: distributions by income quintile’ and presents the number of individuals belonging to households in each quintile broken down by age group.

   Households are grouped into income quintiles on the basis of their equivalised disposable income, ranked from lowest to highest, i.e., the first quintile represents the 20% households with the lowest equivalised disposable income and the fifth quintile the 20% households with the highest. Equivalisation means that results for each household have been recalculated on the basis of its consumption needs, in order to produce comparable results across households of different size and composition. <br><br>

   The default view of this table is for a single country (‘Reference area’ filter) and single year (‘Time period’ filter). In cases where countries appear to be greyed-out, data may be available for earlier years, and these can be selected by selecting a different start and end year in the ‘Time period’ filter. <br><br>

   For more information on the (compilation of) these results, please see the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/sdd/na/household-distributional-results-in-line-with-national-accounts-experimental-statistics.htm"> webpage on household distributional results </a>.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The OECD Tax Statistics provide detailed annual information on tax and other government revenues for the period 1955 onwards for all OECD countries (where data is available).

The OECD Tax Statistics are presented in the following datasets (some tables will include missing data):

Revenue Statistics

Data on government sector receipts and on taxes in particular, are basic inputs to most structural economic descriptions and economic analyses and are increasingly used in international comparisons. These databases give a conceptual framework to define which government receipts should be regarded as taxes and to classify different types of taxes. They present a unique set of detailed and internationally comparable tax data in a common format for all OECD countries from 1955 onwards. The countries covered are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States.

Revenue Statistics in Latin America

Data on government sector receipts and on taxes in particular, are basic inputs to most structural economic descriptions and economic analyses and are increasingly used in international comparisons. These databases give a conceptual framework to define which government receipts should be regarded as taxes and to classify different types of taxes. The data covers the years starting from 1990 extending until 2010. The countries covered are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Taxing Wages

Taxing Wages provides unique information on income tax paid by workers and on social security contributions levied upon employees and their employers in OECD countries. Family benefits paid as cash transfers are specified. Amounts of taxes and benefits are detailed programme by programme, for eight household types which differ by income level and household composition. Results reported include the marginal and effective tax burden for one- and two-earner families, and total labour costs of employers. The data covers the years starting from 2000 extending until 2012. The countries covered are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States.

Taxes and benefits

The Benefits and Wages series addresses the complicated interactions of tax and benefit systems for different family types and labour market situations. The series is a valuable tool used to compare the different benefits made available to those without work and those with different levels of in-work income. It covers 37 countries (29 OECD countries and from 2005 Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Slovenia and from 2008 Bulgaria and Romania) for the period 2001-2008. The main social policy areas are as follows: taxes and social security contributions due on earnings and benefits, unemployment benefits, social assistance, family benefits, housing benefits, and in-work benefits. These social policies can be further examined by family type, number of children, first earner, second earner and employment status, 2007 edition of Benefits and Wages, statistics, country specific files and tax-benefit models and calculator, which provide detailed descriptions of all cash benefits available to those in and out of work as well as the taxes they were liable to pay are available on Benefits and Wages. OECD Indicators Data are presented from 2001 onwards. The countries covered are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Romania.

Fiscal decentralisation

This database includes intergovernmental grants by type and by function as well as tax autonomy:

The intergovernmental grants by type dataset includes statistics on intergovernmental grants by type where the two core types are earmarked which are conditional grants (mandatory, matching, current, capital, non-matching, discretionary) and non-earmarked which are unconditional grants (mandatory, general purpose, block grants, discretionary). Grants type can be...

Portugal, Canada, and the United States were the countries with the highest house price to income ratio in 2024. In all three countries, the index exceeded 130 index points, while the average for all OECD countries stood at 116.2 index points. The index measures the development of housing affordability and is calculated by dividing nominal house price by nominal disposable income per head, with 2015 set as a base year when the index amounted to 100. An index value of 120, for example, would mean that house price growth has outpaced income growth by 20 percent since 2015. How have house prices worldwide changed since the COVID-19 pandemic? House prices started to rise gradually after the global financial crisis (2007–2008), but this trend accelerated with the pandemic. The countries with advanced economies, which usually have mature housing markets, experienced stronger growth than countries with emerging economies. Real house price growth (accounting for inflation) peaked in 2022 and has since lost some of the gain. Although, many countries experienced a decline in house prices, the global house price index shows that property prices in 2023 were still substantially higher than before COVID-19. Renting vs. buying In the past, house prices have grown faster than rents. However, the home affordability has been declining notably, with a direct impact on rental prices. As people struggle to buy a property of their own, they often turn to rental accommodation. This has resulted in a growing demand for rental apartments and soaring rental prices.

Definition: The 90/10 decile ratio is a measure of the inequality of distribution. It is determined here in relation to the distribution of equivalised income. It sets the lower limit of the equivalised income of the highest-income decile (= upper limit of the 9. The ratio of the equivalised income of the lowest-income decile. Equivalised income is a weighted per capita income per household member, which is calculated by dividing household net income by the sum of the household weights of persons living in the household. The head of the household is assigned the weight = 1, for the other household members weights of < 1 are used because it is assumed that savings can be achieved through joint management. The new OECD scale is used as a scale of equivalence to determine the respective weights. After that, the head of household is assigned a weight of 1, other household members aged 14 or more a weight of 0.5 and household members under the age of 14 are assigned a weight of 0.3. In order to form the income decile, all persons are sorted according to the level of equivalised income and divided into ten equal groups. The first decile contains the 10 percent with the lowest, the tenth with the highest equivalised income.

Data source:
IT.NRW, Microcensus

Turkey, Russia, Portugal, and Latvia were the countries with the highest house price-to-rent-ratio in the ranking in the second quarter of 2024. In all three countries, the ratio exceeded *** index points, meaning that house price growth had outpaced rents by over ** percent between 2015 and 2024. What does the house-price-to-rent ratio show? The house-price-to-rent-ratio measures the evolution of house prices compared to rents. It is generally calculated by dividing the median house price by the median annual rent. In this statistic, the values have been normalized with 100 equaling the 2015 ratio. Consequentially, a value under 100 means that rental rates have risen more than house prices. When all OECD countries are considered as a whole, the gap between house prices and rents was wider than in the Euro area. Measures of housing affordability The national house-price-to-rent ratio may not fully reflect the cost of housing in a particular country, as it does not capture the price variations that can exist between different regions. It also does not take into consideration the relationship between incomes and housing costs, which is measured by the house-price-to-income and household-rent-to-income ratios. Taking both these factors into account uncovers vast differences in housing affordability between different regions and different professions.

Among OECD member countries, the United States had the highest percentage of gross domestic product spent on health care as of 2023. The U.S. spent nearly ** percent of its GDP on health care services. Germany, France and Japan followed the U.S. with distinctly smaller percentages. The United States had both significantly higher private and public spending on health compared with other developed countries. Why compare OECD countries?OECD stands for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It is an economic organization consisting of ** members, mostly high-income countries and committed to democratic principles and market economy. This makes OECD statistics more comparable than statistics of developed and undeveloped countries. Health economics is an important matter for the OECD, even more since increasing health costs and an aging population have become an issue for many developed countries. Health costs in the U.S.  A higher GDP share spent on health care does not automatically lead to a better functioning health system. In the case of the U.S., high spending is mainly because of higher costs and prices, not due to higher utilization. For example, physicians’ salaries are much higher in the U.S. than in other comparable countries. A doctor in the U.S. earns almost twice as much as the average physician in Germany. Pharmaceutical spending per capita is also distinctly higher in the United States. Furthermore, the U.S. also spends more on health administrative costs compare to other wealthy countries.