Income

[andrewducker]

The article on income and statistics here not only points out that I'm doing quite well for myself (being above both the median and the mean incomes), but points out how silly the 'average' really is - as it doesn't actually tell you very much that's useful/interesting.

makes it pretty clear that 2/3 of people earn below an average wage - because the richest people push the average up significantly.

I'm sure that I had something which told you what percentage of people in full time employment in the UK earned less than you - but I can't seem to find it now...

Comments

[drplokta]

The BBC are pretty clearly including people who aren't employed at all, since there's no other way to explain the big spike at an income of £0.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Oh, well spotted! I really must wear my glasses...

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about exactly who is included in that particular graph. Just over 500,000 people have zero income, and I would have expected it to be a far higher number than that if it included all adults.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Adults of a working age I would assume, which takes out quite a few million pensioners. There's also contention around whether you'd include full-time students etc etc.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Amazingly few people have 0 income (though there are a few; 500k sounds about right in fact, mostly pensioners who are living entirely on capital, and students who are living entirely on their parents' income. Rather a lot have 0 earnings; they account for most of the bottom 20% of the working age distribution. I have no time for these graphs unless they make clear whether this is pre-or post-tax income, and whether it is income before or after housing costs. Poverty analysis is normally post-deductions (tax and NI) and post-housing costs; what's more it's normally considering households rather than individuals. For mean and median earnings and income, who knows.

This is quite a complex area of analysis.

Similarly, there was a useless article about debt in the paper today, saying that average London debt is about £45k per person, and linking this to the credit crunch. You had to look very very hard to establish that it *included mortgages*.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about housewives (and nowadays I suppose househusbands). Even in today's double income society, they still make up a sizable percentage of the adult population.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Many housewives have Child Benefit though. There are no longer very many one-income-by-choice couples without children; a very big societal shift over the last 30 years.