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Median monthly S'pore household 'market income' grew by 6.8% to S$12,446 in 2025
Household market income inequality is the lowest since 2015.
February 09, 2026, 03:01 PM
The median monthly household market income increased from S$11,558 in 2024 to S$12,446 in 2025 for resident households.
This marks a 7.7 per cent increase in nominal terms, or 6.8 per cent in real terms after adjusting for inflation.
The figures were released by the Singapore Department of Statistics (SingStat) on Feb. 9, 2026, in the Key Household Income Trends (KHIT) Report 2025.
A key change from previous reports is that the measure of household income has been expanded to that of “market income”, which includes both employment and non-employment income.
Examples of non-employment income include investments, rental, contributions from other households like children and alimony and pensions.
In tandem with that, the coverage of households in the report has been broadened to include both non-employed and employed households.
What is the median?
The median is the middle value in a numbered list, ranked from smallest to largest. It has an equal number of values above and below.
If there are an even number of values in the list, the middle pair must be added together and divided by two to find the median.
The median is sometimes used if a list of numbers contains outliers that would skew the data, if you used the mean instead.
For example, let's say you have a group of five friends. Adam earns S$2,000 a month, Brenda earns S$3,000, Cynthia earns S$4,000, Devon also earns S$4,000, and Ethan earns S$1,200,000 (his friends are super jealous).
If you calculated the mean, you would conclude that the average monthly income earned among the five friends is S$242,600.
However, the median number of S$4,000 would give a more accurate picture.
Median monthly household market income
Back to the report. The median monthly household market income increased by 17.0 per cent cumulatively or 3.2 per cent per annum in real terms from 2020 to 2025.
Accounting for household size, the median monthly household market income per household member rose from S$3,837 in 2024 to S$4,160 in 2025, an increase of 8.4 per cent in nominal terms or 7.5 per cent in real terms.
From 2020 to 2025, the median monthly household market income per household member grew by 20.5 per cent cumulatively or 3.8 per cent per annum in real terms.
Employment income remains primary income source
The report showed that in 2025, employment income continued to form the largest source of monthly household market income per household member.
However, its share declined to 79.6 per cent from 81.1 per cent in 2024.
By income deciles, employment income was the main source of income for resident households in the 2nd to 10th deciles, with its share ranging from 53.7 per cent to 83.1 per cent of monthly household market income per household member.
A decile group is one-tenth of all households, arranged by their household incomes from minimum to maximum.
On the other hand, resident households in the first decile relied mainly on non-employment sources.
The report found that over the years, the distribution of income sources has shifted, with a growing proportion derived from non-employment sources, particularly investment income (including interest from Central Provident Fund balances).
Government transfers
Various government schemes that have been introduced over the years to supplement individual and household income have continued to provide support to households.
Overall, resident households received S$7,300 per household member on average in government transfers in 2025.
This comprise S$1,891 from regular government contributions, S$964 from ad-hoc government contributions and S$4,445 from transfers in-kind such as subsidised education and healthcare.
This was lower than the S$7,725 received in 2024 due to the cessation of ad-hoc government contributions from the one-off schemes introduced in 2024, like the Majulah Package.
Meanwhile, resident households in one- & two-room Housing & Development Board (HDB) flats continued to receive the most government transfers.
In 2025, they received an average of S$16,519 per household member, more than double the average amount received by all resident households.
Household market income inequality lowest since 2015
As for household market income inequality, the report stated that the Gini coefficient based on household market income per household member fell from 0.460 in 2024 to 0.452 in 2025.
This is the lowest since records on household market income began in 2015.
A Gini coefficient of zero occurs when there is total income equality, and one means there is total inequality.
After adjusting for government transfers and taxes, the Gini coefficient based on household market income per household member in 2025 fell from 0.452 to 0.379, also the lowest since such records began in 2015.
Occasional paper on income growth, inequality and social mobility
This decrease in income inequality is also highlighted in the Ministry of Finance (MOF) Occasional Paper, also released on Feb. 9.
The paper reviews trends in income growth, inequality and social mobility in Singapore, and outlines the government’s approach and policies to “sustain a fair and inclusive society”.
This decrease in income inequality reflects the combined effects of broad-based income growth and a significant strengthening of government transfers, with a greater share directed towards the lower-income, the paper stated.
Key programmes include the Workfare Income Supplement and the Silver Support Scheme, which provides targeted support to seniors who had lower incomes during their working years.
Key findings
Another key finding of the paper is that over the past decade, resident households in Singapore have experienced broad-based income growth in real terms.
This means that income growth has outpaced inflation.
The paper also found that wealth inequality, based on available data, is higher than income inequality.
The Gini coefficient for wealth is estimated at 0.55, compared to 0.38 for income after taxes and transfers.
However, this is broadly comparable to that of other advanced economies, including the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany, where wealth Gini coefficients are estimated to be in the range of 0.6 to 0.7.
Meanwhile, intergenerational mobility remains strong.
Data showed that most Singaporeans have experienced upward income mobility across generations.
By international comparison, Singapore has done relatively well in sustaining social mobility, the paper stated.
However, as Singapore’s economy matures, relative intergenerational mobility has shown signs of gradual moderation.
As such, the government plans to continue investing heavily in education, which remains a key driver of social mobility.
At the same time, they will also continue to provide broad-based support to Singaporeans across all life stages, especially in key areas like housing and healthcare, the paper said.
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