Questions like “is someone who earns over $150,000 a year rich?” or “how much does the average Australian earn?” seem as though they should be easy to answer. But in practice both questions are tricky.
For the latter you need to figure out whether you mean the “typical” Australian or the mean; whether or not to include only people who are employed, and so on.
For the former question, people disagree on the definition of “rich”. Is it about having an income that is higher than most, or do you also need significant assets? And just how far to the right of the wealth distribution do you need to be, anyway? Maybe we need to find other ways entirely to define what constitutes a rich household.
Regardless, having a sense of how the income of the typical full-time worker compares with the income of other Australians is helpful around federal budget time – as is knowing just how far down the income distribution someone on Centrelink payments is.
This quiz allows you to compare your own income and wealth to that of other Australians, including within demographics specific to you, such as your age, family composition and living situation.
You can also select from a list of example profiles to see a range of income and wealth situations typical to Australians in different living and working situations.
The results should be considered an estimate only, as it compares your situation to the latest data available. The income data is from 2021 and the wealth data is from 2020, both adjusted to an approximation of 2024 values using the consumer price index and wage price index (see notes below).
The income and wealth comparison data is based on all Australians, not just those who are employed, except where it says otherwise in the demographic breakdowns.
None of your demographic and financial data is being recorded by Guardian Australia, as all calculations occur exclusively within your web browser.
Notes and methods
The results show how your income and wealth compare with the rest of Australia along one dimension at a time (eg, compared with people of similar ages) rather than multiple dimensions (eg, people of similar ages who also live in the same area as you).
Total weekly personal income data for all Australians and by demographic breakdown is sourced from the 2021 census.
Total household income data for all Australians and by demographic breakdown is sourced from the 2021 census.
Household wealth data for all Australians aged 15+ and by demographic breakdown is sourced from the 2019-20 Survey of Income and Housing.
Some wealth demographic categories were combined or excluded (eg, greater Hobart and rest of Tasmania GCCSAs) where sample sizes were too small to be reliable.
The percentage of the population in each range (eg, $111,300 to $167,000 wealth) was calculated as a total of each demographic.
All income data has been adjusted to December 2023 levels using the latest wage price index. For some this will either under or overestimate their position relative to the income distribution (eg, for those who earned a significant share of income from government transfers or investments rather than wages).
All wealth data has been adjusted to March 2024 levels using the latest consumer price index. This is also an inexact approximation as the basket of goods used to calculate CPI does not include some asset classes, and does not exactly match some significant sources of household wealth (eg shares or housing).
Income and wealth ranges (eg, $111,300 to $167,000) for some demographics that were no longer continuous after CPI/WPI adjustment and rounding have been further adjusted to be continuous again.
Income and wealth data for the sample profiles are not intended to strictly represent median/average values for those demographics. They have been roughly estimated using the Linked Employer-Employee Dataset, the 2021 census and the 2019-20 Survey of Income and Housing.
