Singapore real household income growth per person slows to 3% in 2018

• Feb 13, 2019

SINGAPORE household income growth per person slowed in 2018, although the shrinking number of people living under the same roof helped to give the figures a boost.

Median household income from work for each member stood at S$2,792 a month – up by 3.4 per cent on a dollar basis, or by 3 per cent in real terms when shorn of inflation’s effects, according to Department of Statistics (SingStat) figures out on Wednesday.

This was down from the 3.9 per cent real growth in median per capita income the year before.

Altogether, households with at least one working member – which make up almost nine-tenths of all households here – saw real employment income growth of 2.6 per cent, to S$9,293, in 2018, compared with 1.5 per cent growth in 2017.

The median is the mid-way point in the population. The average (mean) real growth was 0.5 per cent, with households in the top 11 per cent to 29 per cent seeing the biggest income gains, at 4 per cent.

Household income from work includes Central Provident Funds from employers, but excludes income from other sources, such as dividends or rent. It also does not count maids’ wages.

Based on this definition of income per household member, the Gini coefficient – a measure of income inequality – was 0.458 in 2018, just shy of 0.459 in the previous year.

Zero represents total income equality and one represents total inequality.

Singapore’s average household incomes for each member ranged from S$570 for the bottom 10th of the population to S$13,581 for the top 10th.

The Gini coefficient fell to 0.404 after taxes and transfers from the government, SingStat added, as public schemes handed out an average of S$4,494 to each resident household member. Government transfers were S$9 lower, on average, than in the year before, on a drop in Medishield Life transitional subsidies and the absence of one-off grants such as NS50 vouchers.

About 12.1 per cent of households were made up entirely of people who are not working, which was mainly due to the rising share of ageing Singaporeans.

Source: https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/singapore-real-household-income-growth-per-person-slows-to-3-in-2018