I'm always amused by how the newspapers' defintion of 'middle income' is so unlike everyone elses. Come budget time the FT will take about middle-income Britain as those people earning £50,000, or famiiles with incomes of £80,000. Of course this is nonsense -- a household income of £50,000 puts you easily in the top 25% of households, median (i.e middle income) for ALL adults is about £15,000 for men and about £7,000 for women. Median income for women peaks between 20 and 25, with about £10,500 a year, whilst for rmen it peaks at 35 and 44 at about £20,000. The most generous measure, full-time employees, median income is about £20,000 for men, £14,000 for women. Only 1.2m men and 0.2m women earned more than £45k in 2001.
Similarly interesting statistics from the US show that median (i.e middle) income of males aged 15 -65 was $30,951 in 2001 or about £20,000, for all males it was $29,000 with non-hispanic whites on $31,700 and blacks on just $21,000 or about £13,000. These figures are a little dragged down by the young, for those males between 25 and 65 the median looks to be about $35,000.
For all females it's lower still at just $16,614, or about £10,500. This isn't differentiated by race, and obviously is affected by non-working females more than in the case of males, but even hte highest group, the 45-64 year olds median income is only $24,000.
Thus in the US the proportion of males who earn less than $50,000, i.e. much less than £50,000, is 79%, of women it is 89%. Of $75,000 (i.e about £50,000) it rises to 90%. Middle income indeed.
It's all here.
posted by Matthew @ 4/29/2003 11:58:00 AM
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