Our top 1% of income earners is an increasingly entrenched elite
- Written by: Roger Wilkins, Professorial Fellow and Deputy Director (Research), HILDA Survey, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne
The share of total income collected by the top 1% of Australia’s income earners has been trending upwards since the 1980s. It is now about 9% of total income[1].
How concerned should we be about this? To some extent it depends on fluidity of membership of the top 1% (which in Australia means earning a pretax income of at least A$246,000[2]).
If someone is part of the 1% this year but not last year, this would suggest income inequality is a fact of life but at least we still have social mobility: people have good and bad years, with the top 1% largely comprising people who happen to be having a good year. It won’t bother the other 99% of us so much.
But if the top 1% comprises the same people every year, we will be more concerned about an entrenched elite moving ever further away from the rest of us.
Our research[3] – using newly available longitudinal tax data[4] – has made it possible to evaluate the extent of “top-end mobility” over the past three decades. This is the first evidence on the extent to which membership of Australia’s top 1% (or other top income groups) changes from year to year.
Read more: Other Australians don't earn what you think. $59,538, is typical[5]
We find there is considerable mobility at the top. For example, since 1991 at least a quarter of the top 1% in any given year have not been in the top 1% in the next year.
But there has been an appreciable decline in top income mobility.
For example, 64% of people in the top 1% in 1991 were still in the top 1% a year later. 73% of those in the top 1% in 2016 were still there in 2017.
In 1991, 29% remained in the top 1% for the next three years. In 2012, 38% remained in the top 1% for the next three years.
What our results show
Our findings, based on a variety of approaches, show most of the decrease in movements in and out of the top 1% occurred in the mid-2000s and early 2010s. We found the same trend in the top 0.1% and top 10% income groups.
Splitting 1991 to 2015 into five periods of five years each, we find that half of those who appeared in the top 1% at any time between 1991 and 1995 were there for one year only. By 2011-15 the proportion of one-time entrants had dropped to 38%, meaning more people making it to the top 1% staying there for longer.
Another indicator of the increased “stickiness” at the top are higher re-entry rates: those dropping out of the top 1% are more likely to return in subsequent years.
Read more https://theconversation.com/our-top-1-of-income-earners-is-an-increasingly-entrenched-elite-170445
