The Progressive Economics Forum

Rising Top Income Shares

Posted by Andrew Jackson under inequality.
May 31st, 2010
Comments: none

Over at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Stephen Gordon has posted Michael Veall’s data, updating his past work on the rising income share of top income recipients (expressed as a share of market income declared by adults for tax purposes, and excluding capital gains.) Veall presented his main findings at the CEA meetings. The data were extracted by Statscan from tax data.

http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2010/05/an-update-on-the-concentration-of-income-in-canada.html

The data are fascinating to trawl through. The main conclusion here is that the share of the top 1% of individual tax filers has continued to increase since 2002 – the last year for which we had data. Their share has jumped from 7.9% in 1982 – when the upward trend began – to 13.8% in 2007. As of 2007, it took an income of at least $169,231 to get into the top 1%, but incomes in that percentile averaged $403,500 since there is a high level of inequality at the very top of the income spectrum. Average inflation adjusted income of the top 1% has doubled since 1982. The detailed data show that a lot of the action is in even smaller top groups than the top 1%.

The posted data show more or less the same trend when attention is turned to family market income, and income defined to include capital gains. The data also show that claims of a high turnover year to year in the ranks of the top 1% are not justified.

	The Top 1%

Year	Average $	Lower Limit	Share
1982	198,200	116,300	7.91
1983	186,700	112,200	7.75
1984	193,000	112,400	7.9
1985	196,300	113,900	7.94
1986	195,600	114,100	8.1
1987	202,000	114,600	8.29
1988	234,600	122,300	9.24
1989	253,800	125,600	9.86
1990	235,300	122,900	9.4
1991	223,700	119,200	9.43
1992	218,200	117,400	9.36
1993	218,400	116,300	9.65
1994	221,100	118,100	9.68
1995	232,900	121,900	10.05
1996	246,800	124,300	10.57
1997	270,900	129,200	11.34
1998	291,500	134,800	11.85
1999	305,300	138,700	12.09
2000	334,700	144,900	12.84
2001	338,400	149,000	12.76
2002	325,700	147,400	12.41
2003	323,500	146,800	12.34
2004	341,300	151,500	12.71
2005	362,600	155,800	13.15
2006	391,700	163,600	13.77
2007	403,500	169,321	13.78