Income and wealth

UK household income and wealth.

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Effects of taxes and benefits on UK household income: financial year ending 2019

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  • People from White ethnic groups had, on average, around 60% higher original household income (pre-tax and benefits) compared with Black ethnic groups (£42,400 versus £26,500) in the financial year ending (FYE) 2019; while the effects of taxes and benefits reduces this gap, income was still 17% lower after all these redistributive measures.
  • Employees who were working in occupations with a higher propensity for homeworking were on average more likely to have higher household disposable income in the FYE 2019.
  • Around half of workers in the richest fifth of people worked in occupations that were least exposed to the coronavirus (COVID-19), compared with around one in five workers in the poorest fifth of people.
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Household income inequality, UK: financial year ending 2019

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  • Income inequality in the UK increased slightly over the two years to financial year ending (FYE) 2019, to reach 34.7% according to estimates from our Living Costs and Food Survey; this means that levels of income inequality are broadly comparable with their FYE 2011 levels.
  • Income inequality remains lower than the levels reached prior to the economic downturn; over the four years to FYE 2008 income inequality increased by an average of 1.2 percentage points per year to reach 38.6%, before falling to 34.1% by FYE 2011.
  • Income inequality for people in retired households has increased by 4.2 percentage points to reach 31.6% over the five years to FYE 2019; income inequality for people in non-retired households has been broadly stable over this period.
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Average household income, UK

Estimates of median and mean disposable income for people in the UK for the financial year ending 2019.

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Datasets related to Income and wealth

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    Preliminary estimates for Great Britain from the Wealth and Assets Survey using attitudinal data not dependent on thorough checking and imputation methodology.

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    Average weekly household expenditure on goods and services in the UK, by region, age, income, economic status, socio-economic class and household composition.

  • General Lifestyle Survey

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