Average salary Vs average household income

[Onlyrainbows]

I ended up in this online argument about the difference between struggling/comfortable/luxurious lives (different discussion!) But the average salary and income came up during that argument. It turns out that average salary is £31k but the average household income is just £40k, couldn't we extrapolate that there are huge numbers of either SAHP and/or one parent has a PT job with a much lower income. It was a complete eye opener to me!

I think there are a lot of jobs that pay ridiculously high wages that skews it a bit as well, even though very few people actually earn that much. But yes that's a good point, I suspect a lot of part time workers and those who stay at home for x years factor in, plus those where both or one partner cannot work and have to rely on benefits (which aren't usually a livable amount sadly). Legal minimum wage is £17,800 per annum on full time hours, so could be the case both are in near min wage jobs, remember there's zero hour contracts as well and not sure how they calculate the average income, but probably different things at play.

Tons of things impact this.

What's the parameters for 'household income' compared to wage. Because, (as an example) I earn an ok wage. I however have shares in my company. They pay out enough to put me into 6 figure income.

So whilst I wouldn't show the top 5% of earners, when it looks at wages. I would be if it looks at income.

Then throw people with huge wages, part time workers, low income house holds etc and it impacts that data.

But I think first you would need to understand the difference between 'average wage' and 'household income' and what parameters have been set when working those averages out.

38% of women work part time (First link I googled, from the parliament website) so it sounds about right - plus an other chunk will be SAHM or not working due to ill health etc.

(13% if men work part time)

www.statista.com/statistics/1002964/average-full-time-annual-earnings-in-the-uk/

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyear2020

Unfortunately I couldn't find an ONS one for average salary, so I really don't know what parameters were used for the Statista one. I did read that the average household income is after tax, so added the tax to it to make it more comparable.