Median household income in S'pore increased by only 0.2% in 2022, hampered by high inflation

The improving trend of lower inequality in Singapore continued in 2022.

Daniel Seow | February 09, 2023, 06:48 PM

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Median household income in Singapore grew 0.2 per cent in 2022 after inflation, stated a report by the Singapore Department of Statistics (DOS) released on Feb. 9.

Here are some of their findings:

Median household income from work increased in 2022; but inflation remained high

Screenshot via DOS report.

For households with at least one employed person, median income from work increased by 6.1 per cent, from S$9,520 in 2021 to S$10,099 in 2022.

This excludes income from rental, investment, contributions from relatives or friends, and social welfare grants.

After adjusting for inflation, this shows that median household income from work increased by 0.2 per cent in 2022, in real terms.

Growth of Median Household Income in Nominal and Real Terms. Screenshot via DOS report.

This 0.2 per cent increase is less than in 2021, where median household income increased by 1.5 per cent.

The difference can be partially explained by higher inflation rates in 2022, influenced strongly by increased costs for items in the three largest categories: housing and utilities, food and transport.

Most households saw increases in their median income per member

When taking into account household size, the median household income from work per household member rose from S$3,027 in 2021 to S$3,287 in 2022.

This is an increase of 2.6 per cent after adjusting for inflation.

via SingStat

There was income growth of 1.1 to 10.1 per cent for the first nine deciles.

The tenth (highest) decile refers to the one-tenth of all households with the highest incomes — they saw a real income decline of 1.3 per cent.

Households received more government transfers in 2022

via SingStat

Resident households received S$5,765 per household member on average from government schemes in 2022.

This increase is due to the one-off and transitionary measures in 2022, as well as enhanced schemes, to cushion the impact of the GST increase and higher inflation.

Resident households staying in HDB one and two-room flats continued to receive the most government transfers.

In 2022, they received S$12,189 per household member on average from government schemes.

via SingStat

Household income inequality last year continued its downward trend.

Income inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient — a Gini coefficient of zero occurs when there is total income equality, and it hits one when there is total inequality.

Singapore's Gini coefficient based on household income per household member was 0.437 in 2022, lower than the 0.444 observed in 2021.

After adjusting for government transfers and taxes, the Gini coefficient is further reduced to 0.378. This is only slightly higher than 2020's 0.375, which is the lowest on record.

DOS said this reflected the redistributive effect of government transfers and taxes.

Top image by Mothership