Using taxation statistics, we estimate the income share held by top income groups in Australia over the period 1921-2002. We find that the income share of the richest fell from the 1920s until the mid-1940s, rose briefly in the post-war decade, and then declined until the early-1980s . During the 1980s and 1990s, top income shares rose rapidly. At the start of the twenty-first century, the income share of the richest was higher than it had been at any point in the previous fifty years. Among top income groups, recent decades have also seen a rise in the share of top income accruing to the super-rich. Trends in top income shares are similar to those observed among other elite groups, such as judges, politicians, top bureaucrats and CEOs. We speculate that changes in top income shares may have been affected by top marginal tax rates, skill-biased technological change, social norms about inequality, and the internationalisation of the market for English-speaking CEOs.

Key information about Australia Household Income per Capita

• Australia Annual Household Income per Capita reached 30,914.027 USD in Jun 2020, compared with the previous value of 34,767.371 USD in Jun 2018.
• Australia Annual Household Income per Capita data is updated yearly, available from Jun 1995 to Jun 2020, with an averaged value of 25,207.153 USD.
• The data reached an all-time high of 43,819.349 USD in Jun 2012 and a record low of 15,753.318 USD in Jun 2001.
• In the latest reports, Retail Sales of Australia grew 4.217 % YoY in May 2023.

CEIC calculates Annual Household Income per Capita from annual Weekly Average Household Income multiplied by 52, annual Number of Household and quarterly Total Population and converts it into USD. The Australian Bureau of Statistics provides Average Household Income in local currency, Number of Household and Total Population. Federal Reserve Board average market exchange rate is used for currency conversions. Household Income per Capita is in annual frequency, ending in June of each year. Household Income per Capita prior to 2008 based on 2017-2018 price.

In financial year 2020, over 460 thousand households in Australia had a gross weekly household income of 6,000 Australian dollars or more. On the other end of the spectrum, over 30,000 households had a negative income and around over 32,000 had no income.

In June 2022, it was estimated that around 7.3 percent of Australians were aged between 25 and 29, and the same applied to people aged between 30 and 34. All in all, about 55 percent of Australia’s population was aged 35 years or older as of June 2022. At the same time, the age distribution of the country also shows that the share of children under 14 years old was still higher than that of people over 65 years old. A breakdown of Australia’s population growth Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world, yet with a population of around 26 million inhabitants, it is only sparsely populated. Since the 1970s, the population growth of Australia has remained fairly constant. While there was a slight rise in the Australian death rate in 2022, the birth rate of the country decreased after a slight rise in the previous year. The fact that the birth rate is almost double the size of its death rate gives the country one of the highest natural population growth rates of any high-income country.
National distribution of the population Australia’s population is expected to surpass 28 million people by 2028. The majority of its inhabitants live in the major cities. The most populated states are New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. Together, they account for over 75 percent of the population in Australia.

A multi-millionaire is defined as someone owning ** million U.S. dollars or more. It was forecasted that there would be almost ** thousand individuals in Australia defined as multi-millionaires by 2026. This is in line with the country’s growing economy over the years as well as the growing wealth inequality that was becoming a cause for concern in the island nation.

Distribution of the wealthy

As a rich country with plenty of natural resources and a high Human Development Index, Australia had always had a large number of high net-worth individuals or HNWIs. There were over *** thousand millionaires including a couple dozen of billionaires, with these figures expected to grow significantly over the next few years.

Income inequality

Despite the increase of wealth and economic growth, there was a concern at the level of poverty and homelessness due to the rising wealth inequality nationally. The number of homeless people living in Australia had only been increasing with more than a hundred thousand people currently without shelter. Furthermore, most of the wealth was being pushed from the country to the cities, affecting the livelihood of those living in the countryside or outback.

In Australia, ** percent of all national wealth was owned by the wealthiest ten percent of the population in 2023. Within the age group of 65 years or older, the wealthiest ten percent also own ** percent of the wealth, while the lowest ** percent own just ** percent.

Housing Affordability Supply and Demand Data. \r \r Number of South Australian households paying more than 30% of their household income on housing (rent or mortgage) broken down by very low, low and moderate income brackets.\r \r This dataset relates to section 4, Housing Stress, of the Affordability master reports produced by the SA Housing Authority. Each master report covers one Local Government Area and is entitled ‘Housing Affordability – Demand and Supply by Local Government Area’. \r \r The Demand for Supply for LGA reports are available online at: https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/housing-affordability-demand-and-supply-by-local-government-area\r \r Explanatory Notes:\r \r Data sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Census for Population and Housing and it is updated every 5 years in line with the ABS Census. \r \r The nature of the income imputation means that the reported proportion may significantly overstate the true proportion. Census housing stress data is best used in comparing results over Censuses (ie did it increase or decrease in an area) rather than using it to ascertain what proportion of households were in rental stress.\r \r Income bands are based on household income.\r \r High income households can also experience rental stress. These households are included in the total but not identified separately. Data is representative of households in very low, low and moderate income brackets.\r \r Please note that there are small random adjustments made to all cell values to protect the confidentiality of data. These adjustments may cause the sum of rows or columns to differ by small amounts from table totals.

In 2024, Switzerland led the ranking of countries with the highest average wealth per adult, with approximately ******* U.S. dollars per person. The United States was ranked second with an average wealth of around ******* U.S. dollars per adult, followed by Hong Kong SAR. However, the figures do not show the actual distribution of wealth. The Gini index shows wealth disparities in countries worldwide. Does wealth guarantee a longer life? As the adage goes, “money can’t buy you happiness,” yet wealth and income are continuously correlated to the quality of life of individuals in different countries around the world. While greater levels of wealth may not guarantee a higher quality of life, it certainly increases an individual’s chances of having a longer one. Although they do not show the whole picture, life expectancy at birth is higher in the wealthier world regions. Does money bring happiness? A number of the world’s happiest nations also feature in the list of those countries for which average income was highest. Finland, however, which was the happiest country worldwide in 2022, is missing from the list of the top twenty countries with the highest wealth per adult. As such, the explanation for this may be the fact that a larger proportion of the population has access to a high-income relative to global levels. Measures of quality of life Criticism of the use of income or wealth as a proxy for quality of life led to the creation of the United Nations’ Human Development Index. Although income is included within the index, it also has other factors taken into account, such as health and education. As such, the countries with the highest human development index can be correlated to those with the highest income levels. That said, none of the above measures seek to assess the physical and mental environmental impact of a high quality of life sourced through high incomes. The happy planet index demonstrates that the inclusion of experienced well-being and ecological footprint in place of income and other proxies for quality of life results in many of the world’s materially poorer nations being included in the happiest.

In financial year 2020, over two million people in Australia had a disposable personal income of 2,000 Australian dollars or more per week. On the other end of the spectrum, around 400,000 people had 99 Australian dollars or less in disposable income on a weekly basis.

Australia’s industrial and other property operators have faced volatile performance in recent years, with revenue growth closely linked to interest rate movements and evolving occupier trends. After a period of strong expansion on the back of low borrowing costs and soaring ecommerce demand, revenue contracted sharply in 2022-23 when the Reserve Bank raised rates, curbing both speculative developments and new leasing. More recently, stabilising interest rates and easing inflation have begun to restore investor confidence, though uncertainty remains a challenge. Overall, industry revenue has risen at an annualised 3.7% over the past five years and is expected to total $20.7 billion in 2024-25, when revenue will drop by an estimated 1.6%. Industry profitability closely mirrors interest rate cycles, with margins peaking during periods of low borrowing costs and strong leasing demand, as seen in 2021-22. However, profit growth has moderated since mid-2022 as the Reserve Bank’s tightening cycle increased financing costs and subdued new development activity, bringing returns down to pre-pandemic levels by 2024-25. While absolute demand for warehousing remains robust thanks to continued ecommerce demand, its share of overall industry revenue is now shrinking as operators prioritise higher-value segments like data centres, specialised production sites and climate-resilient agricultural facilities, which have been delivering longer leases and more stable returns. Going forwards, easing inflation and steady interest rates are reviving confidence in Australia’s industrial property sector, encouraging businesses to expand facilities and commit to new projects. Large retailers are set to increasingly build and own their own advanced distribution centres, reshaping demand towards build-to-own solutions and digital asset management. The continued growth of online shopping is fuelling the need for modern warehouses and last-mile logistics hubs, especially in major urban centres. Supported by significant government infrastructure investment and more streamlined foreign capital inflows, property operators are prioritising high-spec, technology-driven assets, with premium locations and value-added services set to drive industry growth in the coming years. This combination of factors is expected to culminate in annualised growth of 1.8% through 2029-30 to $22.5 billion.

In 2023, agriculture contributed around 2.57 percent to the GDP of Australia, 27.65 percent came from industry, and 63.57 percent from the services sector. The same year, the Australian inflation rate, another important key indicator for its economic situation, amounted to 2.82 percent. Why is the inflation rate important?Inflation is the steady increase in price levels for consumer goods and services during a certain timespan. The European Central Bank considers a steady inflation rate of two percent a year beneficial for a stable economy – otherwise a country risks economic hardship. In the worst case, a country can experience either hyperinflation (like Venezuela), which is the rapid increase of prices to a point of economic collapse, or deflation, which is the decrease of prices and devaluation of money that can also lead to economic collapse. Up and down under Australia’s inflation has been clawing itself out of a slump in 2016, when it unceremoniously dropped to 1.25 percent due to falling petrol costs and oil prices. The following year, it recovered instantaneously and soared back to just under two percent, and forecasts see it reaching 2.52 percent by 2021. Australians don’t seem too worried about this outlier, and rightly so, since Australia’s economy is still one of the biggest in the Asia-Pacific region and worldwide.