Your Income: Where do you fit in?

[GoGo_dancer]

Based on both mine and Hubby's income, this was our result - you have a higher income than around 91% of the population - equivalent to about 57.2 million individuals - As you can see, you are in the 10th decile group

 

I certainly don't feel that well off! I was stood in Primark the other day debating whether to buy a £5 purse or not!

[skinz]

It only has 2 pages...

 

Exactly. In order to give a truer overall picture more than a few questions would be needed to asses where you "fit in". Like you said it ignored many factors which in itself wasn't exhaustive. A question or two per page could easily have been ten per page which would have been more apt considering the result required. Imagine the paperwork if your census had one question per page.

[Cyclone]

Sadly though, I'd be willing to bet that most of the lower earners who access this will be left with an 'us and them' feeling and concentrate on how unfair the system is.

 

You seem to be a lower earner by choice (part time work) so have no need to feel cheated by the system.

 

I reckon very few lower earners will be accessing this for a pure interest in the statistics, but good on them that do

 

---------- Post added 16-01-2015 at 09:05 ----------

 

And so it should. If I want to live in a mansion and drive a premium German car with the associated outgoings, then my poverty is my choice.

 

We can all be richer by being frugal or poorer by increased spending

 

And should it ignore the difference in the cost of living?

 

Sure, that's an option as well. But what are the statistics supposed to be informing you about. Earning less in Sheffield than someone in London doesn't actually make you worse off in any way (for the sort of comparison I made earlier).

 

---------- Post added 16-01-2015 at 09:54 ----------

 

Spending less on crap and investing in me changed my life. Before that I was living right up to my means and worried what other people thought.

 

For me thats the definition of wealth. Not spending on stupid stuff like cars, expensive clothes, credit etc and reinvesting in yourself instead. Be that learning something new, a business, a skill...thats compound interest or capital which grows over time.

 

What about if you enjoy cars, or clothes, or whatever?

 

---------- Post added 16-01-2015 at 09:56 ----------

 

Based on both mine and Hubby's income, this was our result - you have a higher income than around 91% of the population - equivalent to about 57.2 million individuals - As you can see, you are in the 10th decile group

 

I certainly don't feel that well off! I was stood in Primark the other day debating whether to buy a £5 purse or not!

 

Because it ignores whether you have any other financial commitments (although for some reason not children, despite those being a choice as well).

 

And how well off you feel might be closely linked to the stage of your life as well.

 

In the 9th decile, but just starting a family and setting up a home, is going to be very different to in the 9th decile, kids have just left home and the mortgage was paid off 5 years ago...

 

---------- Post added 16-01-2015 at 09:57 ----------

 

Exactly. In order to give a truer overall picture more than a few questions would be needed to asses where you "fit in". Like you said it ignored many factors which in itself wasn't exhaustive. A question or two per page could easily have been ten per page which would have been more apt considering the result required. Imagine the paperwork if your census had one question per page.

 

It does what it says on the tin, tells you what decile you are in regarding household income.

But I totally agree that this information on it's own isn't very informative.

[L00b]

And should it ignore the difference in the cost of living?

In fairness, the OP and link are all about income, not cost of living. That last one is a piece of string which is about as long as there are individuals (and/or households) earning an income in the UK, each with individual circumstances, wealth, commitments, needs, wants <etc.>

[Cyclone]

You can look at gross differences though which depend on geographical location.

 

It's quite misleading to compare net income and make a comparison between someone in London and someone in Sheffield, the income decile could be different by 2 places, but the standard of living and general feel of that income might be identical for the two.

[Obelix]

It doesn't purport really to compare your choice of how you live - all it does is look at your income, minus unavoidable taxes, and then tell you where you are in relationto other people in your situation.

 

How well off you feel is entirely dependant on your choices which it cannot model. I would like to see it take account of the region you live in though.

[Cyclone]

It takes children into account, so why not take location into account?

And would it be any more difficult to take mortgage into account than council tax?

 

It's just as easy to calculate a distribution for disposable income, as it is net income.

 

---------- Post added 16-01-2015 at 11:23 ----------

 

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery=disposable+income

 

Table 3.12 gives some data, but without an explanation it's difficult to interpret.

 

What's the "equivalised" amount for example, and why do the %'s change between the absolute and equivalised columns?

 

Equivalised income is household income that has been recalculated to take into account the fact that households with many members are likely to need a higher income to achieve the same standard of living as households with fewer members

 

Right, so a larger household costs more to run, so we should look at this value specifically and not the absolute value.

 

So the distribution goes as follows I think;

Decile Lower Boundary

1 0

2 142

3 189

4 231

5 278

6 319

7 369

8 432

9 520

10 664

 

Those values are weekly disposable income per adult in the household.

 

http://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitHandyTools/Pages/Budgetcalculator.aspx

 

Calculate your disposable income here, and then you know which decile you are in for disposable.

A much more interesting value than the net income decile IMO.

 

If a mod could add an anonymous poll we might find that a lot more people actually answer the question though.

[GoGo_dancer]

So the distribution goes as follows I think;

Decile Lower Boundary

1 0

2 142

3 189

4 231

5 278

6 319

7 369

8 432

9 520

10 664

Those values are weekly disposable income per adult in the household.

 

So using the calculator Cyclone linked to, that puts us in the 7th decile, not the 9th. That was quite useful actually...it's interesting to see how much disposable income you have, and then it makes you wonder what you actually spend it on!

[Cyclone]

I was thinking afterwards that the calculator might be removing more things than the government figures. For example, holiday... That comes out of disposable income, it isn't removed in order to calculate your DI. But that's what the calculator I linked to does... Of course you could just enter zero for that value.

[medusa]

I think that the concept of disposable income varies too much. Most of my income is spent on providing for my care needs, so although it's not an 'unavoidable tax' it's a pretty unavoidable cost. Without those costs I'd be a lot more comfortable than I am.