Top End at top of pile for highest household income

New ABS income statistics tell and interesting story for the Top End. See how you household income rates compared to the rest of Australia.

Darwin has the highest mean household income for any Australian capital city, according to new data

DARWIN has the highest mean household income for any Australian capital city, new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show.

The new figures, taken from the ABS’s 2017-18 Survey of Income and Housing, tell a different story to the usual doom and gloom surrounding the Top End economy, with Darwin households earning on average $3075 a week before tax. Sydney comes in second on $2867 a week, while Australia’s mean is $2511.

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The third highest mean household income goes to Canberra at $2687 followed by Perth ($2560), Melbourne ($2413), Brisbane ($2231), Adelaide ($2060) and Hobart ($1968). According to the survey, Australian households that earned $4275 a week (before tax) were in the 90th percentile for weekly household income. But for the Northern Territory, that number was $5192.

In NSW you need to earn $4493 to be in the top 10 per cent of earners and in Victoria you need $4097.

Average household wealth also passed the $1 million mark in 2017/18, a rise of 37 per cent compared to just over a decade ago.

ABS chief economist Bruce Hockman said average household wealth in 2017/18 was $1.02 million compared to nearly $749,000 in 2005/06.

Household wealth continues to grow thanks to rising property prices and superannuation is also increasingly a factor, as the average household super balance has nearly doubled over the past 12 years.

It also seems Australia’s richest households have been getting richer over the past decade, while middle and low-income earners have barely seen an increase their earnings.

The wealthiest 20 per cent now control 60 per cent of all household wealth.

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In the four years leading up to the global financial crisis, average household weekly incomes grew by $220 in real terms.

In the 10 years since then they have increased an average of $44 a week.

Households earned an average of $798 in 2004, this jumped to $1018 by 2008, but a decade on they’re only 1062.