The report also found that 4 out of 5 Australians earn less than $100,000 annually – reportedly the lowest on record. In 2012-13 for example, the number was 9 in 10. So if you're on $100k or more, congratulations, you're in the top 20% of Aussie income earners.
Average Australian Salaries in 2023
A taxable income that was $131,501 or higher was within the top 10% of earners in Australia last year. About 5% of taxpayers had incomes above $180,000. Someone who earned more than $253,066 was in the top 1%.
Australians wanting to be in the country's top 1% for wealth need to have an individual net worth of US$5.5 million ($8.3 million), Knight Frank's 2023 Wealth Report has found.
Generally speaking, you should shoot for at least the mean wage. A good salary in Australia might be anything from AU$ 90,000 to AU$ 108,000. A decent benchmark for what you should make is the median salary of $72,000 per year.
The top 10 per cent of earners in Australia make $122,664 or more, with some of the best paid incomes in the country including miners who rake in $124,550 on average, school principals who take home $130,142 and dentists that are earning $131,773.
The average earnings of the top 20% are 12x the average earnings of the bottom 20% and the wealth of the average household in the top 20% is 93x the average wealth of those in the bottom 20%. The average household gross income is $121,108, however the top 20% of households earn 48% of all income.
The top 20% richest individuals have annual pre-tax incomes of about $330,000, the middle 20% make about $116,000 while the lowest 20% earn $41,000. In terms of income from investments, the biggest chunk is concentrated at the topmost. Close to 70% of investment income goes to the 20% most moneyed households.
So if you're on $100k or more, congratulations, you're in the top 20% of Aussie income earners. If not, don't worry, you're in the good company of 80% of Aussies.
How much income tax do I pay if I make $100,000? If your taxable income is $100,000 a year as an Australian resident for tax purposes, your income tax will be $22,767. Your average tax rate is 22.77% and your marginal tax rate is 32.5%.
Just 3.8 per cent of taxpayers had a taxable income that high in 2019-20. And only 25 per cent had a taxable income higher than $80,000 a year. So a taxpayer with an annual income of $80,000 is in the top quarter of Australian taxpayers.
Most high-income earners believe income of $454,000 makes an upper class household, while middle earners believe $280,000 is enough to be counted as upper class. However, low-income households that participated in the study believe $549,000 is enough to be considered upper class.
People in the census's very top income bracket, like you, earn at least $156,000 a year — or $3,000 a week — before tax. At census time, there were about 596,531 people in Australia above that income level — or 3.8 per cent of income earners.
The Australian middle class has a median household income of AUD$80,000. This statistic is a key indicator of the financial health of the Australian middle class.
Although Australia has not been immune from an increase in the cost of living in the past year, it has been much less severe and perhaps less noticeable, and the national median average salary is higher at $65,000 (£35,800) versus £33,000 in the UK in 2022.
The richest 10 per cent of Aussies have an average net worth of $6.1 million and account for 46 per cent of total wealth. In contrast, the bottom 60 per cent had an average of $376,000 per household, or just 17 per cent of the total. This may be the lucky country, but it appears it's only lucky for some.
The top 10% of Aussie earners make $122,664 or more, Knight Frank's latest wealth report for 2023 shows. This, therefore, puts financial advisors ($155,882), engineering managers ($161,514) and even school principals ($130,142) among the top-earning professions.
Only another 14.9 per cent had taxable incomes exceeding $80,000 a year. So a taxpayer with an income of $80,000 a year is therefore in the top 20 per cent of Australians.
The main reason Australia ranks so highly on individual income tax levels is because Australians don't pay separate social security taxes. These account for an average 25.9% of total tax revenue, or close to 9% of GDP, across the OECD.
If you make $200,000 a year living in Australia, you will be taxed $64,667. That means that your net pay will be $135,333 per year, or $11,278 per month. Your average tax rate is 32.3% and your marginal tax rate is 47.0%. This marginal tax rate means that your immediate additional income will be taxed at this rate.
More than 1.2million people are earning over £100,000 a year, if a new survey of reported incomes is accurate. This is just below 4 per cent of the UK working population, which stood at 31.6million in the first three months of the year, according to official figures.
Having a six-figure household income puts them in the top 5% of earners in the UK, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies.
Yes, you should be able to live comfortably off a 100k salary. You are in the UK's top 5% of wages at this salary level, which you should be proud of. There are, however, many variables that affect each individual differently when it comes to living expenses.
Anyone earning $180,000 would definitely be one of the country's highest paid workers. The large majority of workers (about 75 per cent) earn less than $78,624 a year before tax.
Not only are individuals on $200,000 very much at the top but even households earning that much are. If we just look at all households in Australia we find that the median annual income in 2017-18 was $88,764: But that doesn't tell us very much about standards of living.
How Much Income Do You Need to Be in the Top 20%? The real median household income in the U.S. is around $71,000, according to the latest Census Bureau data. In order to be in the top 20% of income, you'd need to earn nearly double that amount or an average of $130,545 per year.