Average V Median wage Ireland?

Benedict

There has been much controversy lately about mortgage lenders who don't want to lend to individuals or couples jointly earning less than 100k pa. We've seen politicians showing horror at this and suggesting that this figure will mean that vast numbers of even two-earner households will not be eligible for a mortgage. Yet if we are to believe the spin, the "average" working couple would be within a couple of quid of this.

The powers-that-be prefer "average" to "median" because it gives the impression that we're all doing really well. But even the "median" reports would need to be read with care. Geuze has made a helpful contribution to this thread - but even in his case I note that the "median" figures (nothing like 49/50k) are based on looking at 7,700 examples from several million workers! (A drop in the ocean.)

Everyone spots the new top-of-the-range Merc whizzing past - but not the trail of 10 year old Ford Fiestas behind it!

On "How to be good with money" RTE last week, I head Eoin McGee describe a legal secretary's salary of 40k as "good". According to the spin, it's not "good".

CrazyFather1

Brian? wrote: »

I have no idea where you’re getting your earning figures. They’re completely wrong. Wages have gone up in all of those jobs.

Project Managers have gone down significantly. Mostly because the day rate you can sell a PM at is now gone way down, unless you are a hugely experienced one.

Anything Cyber Security related is crazy at the moment

Benedict

Aidan Regan, a political economist and associate professor in UCD’s School of Politics and International Relations, has pointed out that “If there are 40 people in a bar and a billionaire walks in, everyone, on average becomes a millionaire”.

CSO figures show that the "average full time worker" earns almost 49k per annum and this figure has been widely used to give the impression that 49k is the norm and we're all in clover.

If you're struggling and Bill Gates moves onto your road, then all of a sudden if you're going by averages, you're not struggling, you're now rich.

If you're going by median figures, you're still struggling.

So which is reality and which is cloud cuckoo land?

TylerRyan28

Geuze wrote: »

2018 data

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eaads/earningsanalysisusingadministrativedatasources2018/distribution/



So if making €800 a week or more you are doing good ?

crossman47

TylerRyan28 wrote: »

Geuze wrote: »

2018 data

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eaads/earningsanalysisusingadministrativedatasources2018/distribution/



So if making €800 a week or more you are doing good ?

Yes. Do you doubt that? if you are earning more than 600 a week, you are in the upper half of the distribution.

Benedict

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

You think you are smarter than CSO and they are not aware of difference between mean and median?


I'm not sure where you saw that I said I was smarter than the CSO - I don't think any such thing. It's the manner in which statistics are used which I find disturbing - especially how the confusion surrounding "median" and "average" is exploited.


I would like to know how many Irish adults over 18 (apart from full time students) are earning circa E24.50 for every hour they work. I would like to know how many over 18's (apart from full time students) are earning 49k pa.


That figure would throw a very different light on how ordinary people are living.

Just remember, if you had a town in Ireland with 100 adults, 90 were unemployed and the other 10 were earning 100k pa. Then the average earning would be 100k pa. The impression would be that this town is really prosperous whereas in fact it is on its knees.

Geuze

Benedict wrote: »

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Just remember, if you had a town in Ireland with 100 adults, 90 were unemployed and the other 10 were earning 100k pa. Then the average earning would be 100k pa. The impression would be that this town is really prosperous whereas in fact it is on its knees.

Yes, incomes are not the same as earnings.

The CSO produce data on:

(1) mean earnings
(2) median earnings - although I'm still not 100% clear on this

(3) household incomes, published in the SILC, both mean and median, both gross and disposable

timmyntc

zell12 wrote: »

CSO - the median of annual earnings in 2018 was €36,095.
loads more stats on sectoral median incomes there especially Table 8.15 Median annual earnings by county and sex

27.1% of households have no earned income

How many of those households are pensioners and how many are not I wonder.

Geuze

Benedict wrote: »

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

I would like to know how many Irish adults over 18 (apart from full time students) are earning circa E24.50 for every hour they work. I would like to know how many over 18's (apart from full time students) are earning 49k pa.

That figure would throw a very different light on how ordinary people are living.

Tricky to get this data.

I will try the Eurostat SES 2014 and 2018.

Ok, I think I have what you want.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/labour-market/earnings/database



Choose earn_ses_hourly, or play around with the Data Explorer.

Geuze

Eurostat SES 2014 and 2018.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/labour-market/earnings/database

Choose earn_ses_hourly, or play around with the Data Explorer.


Ok, here we go:


FT workers, median earnings in 2018 = 18.39 per hour

NB this is in: industry, construction and services (except public administration, defense, compulsory social security)


That is odd, median earnings ph have fallen since 2014..........????


Something is up........

Geuze

Eurostat SES 2014 and 2018.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/labour-market/earnings/database

Choose earn_ses_hourly, or play around with the Data Explorer.


FT workers 2018

median earnings in 2018 = 18.39 per hour
9th decile = 42.16 per hour

NB this is in: industry, construction and services (except public administration, defense, compulsory social security)

Benedict

Just to take an example, I quote from Irish Times 26 June 2020 (article by Eoin Burke-Kennedy)

"The average full-time salary in the Republic is now nearly €49,000, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO)"

That's 942e per week gross - almost 25e per hour for a 38 hour week. Those who earn nothing (presumably pensioners, unemployed etc.) are excluded from this statistic and why should they be excluded?

So if you to calculate an income figure for every able bodied adult over 18 - including those with zero income - what would that figure look like? What would that "average" and "median" be do you think?

So I would love to hear that figure?

Certainly not 49k per annum!

Geuze

Benedict wrote: »

Just to take an example, I quote from Irish Times 26 June 2020 (article by Eoin Burke-Kennedy)

"The average full-time salary in the Republic is now nearly €49,000, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO)"

That's 942e per week gross - almost 25e per hour for a 38 hour week. Those who earn nothing (presumably pensioners, unemployed etc.) are excluded from this statistic and why should they be excluded?

So if you to calculate an income figure for every able bodied adult over 18 - including those with zero income - what would that figure look like? What would that "average" and "median" be do you think?

So I would love to hear that figure?

Certainly not 49k per annum!

Be careful.

That 49k figure is earnings, not income.

Also, salary is not a helpful term.

A worker's base salary can be very different than their earnings.

Geuze

Benedict wrote: »

"The average full-time salary in the Republic is now nearly €49,000, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO)"

That's 942e per week gross - almost 25e per hour for a 38 hour week. Those who earn nothing (presumably pensioners, unemployed etc.) are excluded from this statistic and why should they be excluded?

So if you to calculate an income figure for every able bodied adult over 18 - including those with zero income - what would that figure look like? What would that "average" and "median" be do you think?

So I would love to hear that figure?

Certainly not 49k per annum!

What is it exactly that you want?

Earnings or income data?

I can provide both.

It seems you want income data, so off we go to the SILC.

Hold on a minute.

Geuze

This is INCOMES data, not earnings.

SILC 2019

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-silc/surveyonincomeandlivingconditionssilc2019/


PLEASE NOTE - it is on a HOUSEHOLD basis at first, and then the equivalised individual figure is calculated.

WARNING - please check what is meant by equivalised.




2019 household incomes

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-silc/surveyonincomeandlivingconditionssilc2019/income/

MEAN

gross, this is market earned income plus social benefits, but is before tax = 70,092

disposable, this is after tax = 53,118


MEDIAN

gross, this is market earned income plus social benefits, but is before tax = 51,217

disposable, this is after tax = 43,552

TylerRyan28

Geuze wrote: »

This is INCOMES data, not earnings.

SILC 2019

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-silc/surveyonincomeandlivingconditionssilc2019/


PLEASE NOTE - it is on a HOUSEHOLD basis at first, and then the equivalised individual figure is calculated.

WARNING - please check what is meant by equivalised.




2019 household incomes

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-silc/surveyonincomeandlivingconditionssilc2019/income/
before tax = 70,092
after tax = 53,118


before tax = 51,217
after tax = 43,552

€70,092
After tax - 47,133
Monthly - 3,928


€51,217
After tax - 37,414
Monthly - 3,118

crossman47

Benedict wrote: »

"The average full-time salary in the Republic is now nearly €49,000, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO)"

That's 942e per week gross - almost 25e per hour for a 38 hour week. Those who earn nothing (presumably pensioners, unemployed etc.) are excluded from this statistic and why should they be excluded?

!

Of course they should be excluded. its an earnings figure so why would you add those with no earnings?

blanch152

Benedict wrote: »

Again, if you want to see what people are earning, look up job.ie - and read the ads in the papers.

And you're in for a shock!

That is completely misleading.

Most companies only advertise for entry-level positions. They tend to promote from within for the higher-level and higher-earning positions.

As a result, job ads will significantly underestimate average and median earnings by as much as the same again.

Geuze

TylerRyan28 wrote: »

€70,092
After tax - 47,133
Monthly - 3,928


€51,217
After tax - 37,414
Monthly - 3,118

Be careful, the SILC data above is on a HOUSEHOLD basis, there could be two or three earners in many households, so I would be careful about applying income tax to the gross figures.


Note that disposable figures are also provided.

Geuze

Geuze wrote: »

This is INCOMES data, not earnings.

SILC 2019

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-silc/surveyonincomeandlivingconditionssilc2019/


PLEASE NOTE - it is on a HOUSEHOLD basis at first, and then the equivalised individual figure is calculated.

WARNING - please check what is meant by equivalised.


2019 household incomes

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-silc/surveyonincomeandlivingconditionssilc2019/income/


MEDIAN

gross, this is market earned income plus social benefits, but is before tax = 51,217

disposable, this is after tax = 43,552

So we know that the middle household has 840 per week disposable income.

One figure that interested me was digging deeper, by household type.

See table 2.3c

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-silc/surveyonincomeandlivingconditionssilc2019/income/


For a household with 2 adults and 1-3 kids under 18, the median disposable income is 58,646 or 1,130 per week

There must be a lot of two earners in these households.

Pringles123

Has anyone got any data on the cost of living in Ireland compared to other European countries?

Geuze

Pringles123 wrote: »

Has anyone got any data on the cost of living in Ireland compared to other European countries?

Yes, of course.

It is 25-30% above the EU average.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Comparative_price_levels_of_consumer_goods_and_services

Geuze

Geuze

Geuze

Geuze

Benedict

Contributors to this thread are very knowledgeable and there are facts and statistics galore. Of course jobs.ie is only one section of available employment and lots of jobs never get advertised and there are couples who'll pay e500 to dine out on a Friday evening - these things are all true. But it is also true that the distinction between average and median is constantly blurred and the impression is deliberately given that ordinary workers have more cash than they really do have. The impression is given, for example, that if you're getting less than e24.50 per hour then most workers in this country are getting better pay than you are - and that is simply not true.

crossman47

Benedict wrote: »

Contributors to this thread are very knowledgeable and there are facts and statistics galore. Of course jobs.ie is only one section of available employment and lots of jobs never get advertised and there are couples who'll pay e500 to dine out on a Friday evening - these things are all true. But it is also true that the distinction between average and median is constantly blurred and the impression is deliberately given that ordinary workers have more cash than they really do have. The impression is given, for example, that if you're getting less than e24.50 per hour then most workers in this country are getting better pay than you are - and that is simply not true.

What do you mean by "the impression is given". As others have made clear, the CSO and Eurostat publish the figures with all relevant detail on methodology, etc. They're not giving impressions - just facts.

[Deleted User]

Benedict, you just want statistics that suit your a priori assumptions. Why not skip this part and just assume you're right and everyone else is wrong? It's far more efficient and saves everyone the futility of trying to help you.

TylerRyan28

Geuze wrote: »

Be careful, the SILC data above is on a HOUSEHOLD basis, there could be two or three earners in many households, so I would be careful about applying income tax to the gross figures./quote]



Oh right I thought you meant someone single getting that wage that's why I put up what there take home pay is
Tax is the killer doesnt look much when you break it down.