This table presents income shares, thresholds, tax shares, and total counts of individual Canadian tax filers, with a focus on high income individuals (95% income threshold, 99% threshold, etc.). Income thresholds are geography-specific; for example, the number of Nova Scotians in the top 1% will be calculated as the number of taxfiling Nova Scotians whose total income exceeded the 99% income threshold of Nova Scotian tax filers. Different definitions of income are available in the table namely market, total, and after-tax income, both with and without capital gains.

Between 1990 and 2023, the mean household income for the low-paid workers in the lowest quintile went from 15,940 U.S. dollars in 1990 to 17,650 U.S. dollars in 2023, while the mean income of the top five percent increased from 285,000 U.S. dollars to 467,100 U.S. dollars over the same period. The income for this period has been adjusted to the 2023 U.S. dollar value.

In March 2025, the top one percent of earners in the United Kingdom received an average pay of over 16,000 British pounds per month, compared with the bottom ten percent of earners who earned around 800 pounds a month.

In 2023, just over 50 percent of Americans had an annual household income that was less than 75,000 U.S. dollars. The median household income was 80,610 U.S. dollars in 2023. Income and wealth in the United States After the economic recession in 2009, income inequality in the U.S. is more prominent across many metropolitan areas. The Northeast region is regarded as one of the wealthiest in the country. Maryland, New Jersey, and Massachusetts were among the states with the highest median household income in 2020. In terms of income by race and ethnicity, the average income of Asian households was 94,903 U.S. dollars in 2020, while the median income for Black households was around half of that figure. What is the U.S. poverty threshold? The U.S. Census Bureau annually updates its list of poverty levels. Preliminary estimates show that the average poverty threshold for a family of four people was 26,500 U.S. dollars in 2021, which is around 100 U.S. dollars less than the previous year. There were an estimated 37.9 million people in poverty across the United States in 2021, which was around 11.6 percent of the population. Approximately 19.5 percent of those in poverty were Black, while 8.2 percent were white.

Graph and download economic data for Median Personal Income in the United States (MEPAINUSA646N) from 1974 to 2023 about personal income, personal, median, income, and USA.

Income from capital was the main source of annual household income for the top percentile of earners in Israel during 2021. That year, earnings from capital reached *** million Israeli shekels on average, about ******* U.S. dollars, which represented about ** percent of annual income. Over the period observed, capital income grew significantly, peaking in 2017 at *** million Israeli shekels, about *** million U.S. dollars. The 2017 spike was due to a government decision to implement a one-time tax incentive to release "trapped" capital gains taxes. On the other hand, employment income accounted for almost ** percent of household earnings among the wealthiest in the country.

Graph and download economic data for Share of Net Worth Held by the Top 1% (99th to 100th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBST01134) from Q3 1989 to Q1 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Income Before Taxes: Wages and Salaries by Number of Earners: Single Consumers, One Earner (CXU900000LB0703M) from 1984 to 2023 about salaries, tax, wages, consumer, income, and USA.

This paper argues that high marginal labor income tax rates on top earners are an effective tool for social insurance even when households have high labor supply elasticity, make dynamic savings decisions, and policies have general equilibrium effects. We construct a large scale overlapping generations model with uninsurable labor productivity risk, show that it has a realistic wealth distribution and numerically characterize the optimal top marginal rate. We find that marginal tax rates for top 1% earners of 79% are optimal as long as the model earnings and wealth distributions display a degree of concentration as observed in US data.

In the first quarter of 2024, almost two-thirds percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth. Income inequality in the U.S. Despite the idea that the United States is a country where hard work and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps will inevitably lead to success, this is often not the case. In 2023, 7.4 percent of U.S. households had an annual income under 15,000 U.S. dollars. With such a small percentage of people in the United States owning such a vast majority of the country’s wealth, the gap between the rich and poor in America remains stark. The top one percent The United States follows closely behind China as the country with the most billionaires in the world. Elon Musk alone held around 219 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Over the past 50 years, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio has exploded, causing the gap between rich and poor to grow, with some economists theorizing that this gap is the largest it has been since right before the Great Depression.

In the 3 years to March 2021, black households were most likely out of all ethnic groups to have a weekly income of under £600.

Income of individuals by age group, sex and income source, Canada, provinces and selected census metropolitan areas, annual.

Korea HS: AS: 1 Quintile: Income: data was reported at 2,011,483.000 KRW in Sep 2018. This records an increase from the previous number of 1,994,563.000 KRW for Jun 2018. Korea HS: AS: 1 Quintile: Income: data is updated quarterly, averaging 1,602,608.000 KRW from Mar 2003 (Median) to Sep 2018, with 63 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2,021,229.000 KRW in Mar 2015 and a record low of 1,102,397.000 KRW in Jun 2003. Korea HS: AS: 1 Quintile: Income: data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statistics Korea. The data is categorized under Global Database’s South Korea – Table KR.H062: Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HS): by Income Quintile: All Salary and Wage Earner.

Korea HS: All Salary & Wage Earner (AS): 1 Quintile: Persons per Household data was reported at 2.610 Person in Mar 2018. This records an increase from the previous number of 2.570 Person for Dec 2017. Korea HS: All Salary & Wage Earner (AS): 1 Quintile: Persons per Household data is updated quarterly, averaging 2.840 Person from Mar 2003 (Median) to Mar 2018, with 61 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 3.100 Person in Jun 2003 and a record low of 2.550 Person in Sep 2017. Korea HS: All Salary & Wage Earner (AS): 1 Quintile: Persons per Household data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statistics Korea. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Korea – Table KR.H062: Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HS): by Income Quintile: All Salary and Wage Earner.

Families of tax filers; Single-earner and dual-earner census families by number of children (final T1 Family File; T1FF).

Graph and download economic data for Personal Taxes: Federal Income Taxes by Number of Earners: Consumer Units of Two or More People, One Earner (CXUFEDTAXESLB0705M) from 1984 to 2022 about tax, federal, personal, consumer, income, persons, and USA.

The average pre-tax income of the top ten percent earners in Spain was over 95,500 euros at purchasing power parity (PPP) as of 2022, almost nine times more than the average income of the bottom half earners. Looking at the distribution of national income in Spain, the earnings of the least affluent half of the population equated to 21 percent of the total country income in 2022, 0.1 percentage points less than one decade earlier. Moreover, the top one percent of earners in Spain accounted for over ten percent of the overall national income.

Korea HS: Urban Salary & Wage Earner (SW): 1 Quintile: Persons per Househo data was reported at 2.640 Person in Mar 2018. This records an increase from the previous number of 2.560 Person for Dec 2017. Korea HS: Urban Salary & Wage Earner (SW): 1 Quintile: Persons per Househo data is updated quarterly, averaging 2.920 Person from Mar 1997 (Median) to Mar 2018, with 85 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 3.240 Person in Sep 1998 and a record low of 2.530 Person in Sep 2017. Korea HS: Urban Salary & Wage Earner (SW): 1 Quintile: Persons per Househo data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statistics Korea. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Korea – Table KR.H063: Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HS): by Income Quintile: Urban Salary and Wage Earner.

Korea HS: SW: 1 Quintile: Income data was reported at 2,025,997.000 KRW in Sep 2018. This records a decrease from the previous number of 2,033,213.000 KRW for Jun 2018. Korea HS: SW: 1 Quintile: Income data is updated quarterly, averaging 1,432,708.000 KRW from Mar 1997 (Median) to Sep 2018, with 87 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2,033,213.000 KRW in Jun 2018 and a record low of 819,015.000 KRW in Sep 1998. Korea HS: SW: 1 Quintile: Income data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statistics Korea. The data is categorized under Global Database’s South Korea – Table KR.H063: Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HS): by Income Quintile: Urban Salary and Wage Earner.