Personal Income in Australia

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Regional data on the number of income earners, amounts received, and the distribution of income

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Reference period
2020-21 financial year
Released
6/12/2023
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Key statistics

During 2020-21:

  • Total personal income was $1.04 trillion
  • Median personal income was $54,890, up 4.9% on 2019-20
  • Employee income comprised 87.5% of total personal income

Personal Income in Australia (PIA), along with Jobs in Australia (JIA), is one of two releases containing data from the Linked Employer-Employee Dataset (LEED). The Jobs and Income of Employed Persons, 2020-21 TableBuilder product contains more detailed data from the LEED.

Geography

The latest version of the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Edition 3 has been implemented in this release, with data from 2016-17 onwards available on the new ASGS. Data on the previous version of ASGS is available in previous releases of Personal Income in Australia.

Revisions

Data from 2016-17 to 2019-20 has been reprocessed which has resulted in small differences to the historical data. 

Guide to labour statistics

To learn more about our different labour measures, their purpose and how to use them, see our Guide to labour statistics. It provides summary information on labour market topics including Earnings (similar to income) data.

Sources of personal income

  • For most people (77.7%), employee income was the main source of income, up slightly from 77.5% in 2019-20.
  • Median employee income was highest ($56,547, a 4.4% increase on the previous year), followed by superannuation income ($25,983, a 13.8% increase on the previous year).
  • Only 1.5% of people received superannuation income as their main source of income, down slightly from 1.6% in the previous year.

State and territory

  • The Australian Capital Territory recorded the highest median total income ($71,093) and Tasmania the lowest ($50,130)
  • New South Wales recorded the fastest growth rate since 2016-17 (14%) and South Australia the slowest (11.4%)
  • Of all the states and territories, the top 1% of earners received the greatest share of the state's total personal income in New South Wales (11.2%)

Distribution indicators for total personal income

 Median total incomeMedian total income growth rateIncome Share
 2020-21Last yearSince 2016-17Top 1% earnersTop 5% earnersTop 10% earners
Australia$54,8904.9%12.8%9.8%22.5%33.4%
New South Wales$55,8545.7%14.0%11.2%24.3%35.2%
Victoria$54,0883.9%12.5%9.8%22.5%33.5%
Queensland$53,6434.8%12.2%8.4%20.6%31.6%
South Australia$52,7674.6%11.4%8.0%20.1%30.7%
Western Australia$58,5916.1%13.3%9.5%21.9%32.9%
Tasmania$50,1304.6%11.6%7.5%19.5%30.1%
Northern Territory$65,9066.3%12.0%6.0%16.9%27.1%
Australian Capital Territory$71,0934.1%12.6%6.9%18.6%28.9%

Local Government Areas

In 2020-21, the Local Government Areas with the highest median total income in Australia were:

  • Ashburton in Western Australia ($105,655)
  • Roxby Downs in South Australia ($103,653)
  • Peppermint Grove in Western Australia ($96,684)
  1. Excludes Local Government Areas with less than 1,000 earners.
  2. The Australian Capital Territory has no separate local governments.

Income inequality

The Survey of Income and Housing (SIH) provides the most comprehensive source of information for calculating Gini coefficients and measuring income inequality. As such, estimates from Household Income and Wealth, Australia should be used wherever possible, particularly at the Australia, State and Territory, and Greater Capital City Statistical Area levels. Gini coefficients from Personal Income in Australia should be considered complementary information, which provide insights for lower geographic levels. For more information about Gini coefficients, see the Methodology.

The Gini coefficient is a summary indicator, usually between 0 and 1 that indicates the degree of inequality among total incomes within a region. A value of 0 indicates that all earners reported the same amount of income in that region. Higher values represent relatively higher levels of income inequality. The income data reported in this release is market income and therefore can be negative. This is mainly due to losses for Owner Managers of Unincorporated Enterprises (OMUEs). For areas with large numbers of OMUEs reporting negative incomes, the Gini coefficients can exceed 1.

In 2020-21, the following Local Government Areas had the lowest income inequality (the lowest Gini coefficients) in their respective State/Territory:

  • Roxby Downs in South Australia (0.354)
  • Palmerston in Northern Territory (0.360)
  • Ashburton in Western Australia (0.372)

The highest income inequality (the highest Gini coefficients) in their respective State/Territory was:

  • Gwydir in New South Wales (0.910)
  • Cleve in South Australia (0.841)
  • Cottesloe in Western Australia (0.781)
Local government areas with the lowest Gini coefficients for each State and Territory, 2020-21
LGAState/TerritoryGini coefficientProportion of high earners (top quartile)(a)Income share received by top 10% of earnersMedian incomeMean income
CampbelltownNew South Wales0.39419.7%25.5%$55,060$60,483
MeltonVictoria0.40320.9%26.0%$54,943$61,627
WeipaQueensland0.38750.1%23.6%$91,494$93,255
Roxby DownsSouth Australia0.35456.7%22.0%$103,653$106,622
AshburtonWestern Australia0.37255.5%22.0%$105,655$104,461
BrightonTasmania0.37714.7%24.3%$52,058$55,554
PalmerstonNorthern Territory0.36030.6%23.9%$69,983$74,918
ACT(b)Australian Capital Territory0.41935.1%28.9%$71,093$83,003
  1. Proportion of earners in each LGA whose income is in the range of the top quartile, as calculated at the national level.
  2. The Australian Capital Territory has no separate local governments.
Local government areas with the highest Gini coefficients for each State and Territory, 2020-21
LGAState/TerritoryGini coefficientProportion of high earners (top quartile)(a)Income share received by top 10% of earnersMedian incomeMean income
GwydirNew South Wales0.91012.5%42.0%$38,552$37,600
West WimmeraVictoria0.61717.5%36.2%$43,521$52,946
Blackall TamboQueensland0.66818.0%35.6%$50,201$53,056
CleveSouth Australia0.84112.8%38.0%$39,313$37,616
CottesloeWestern Australia0.78146.4%70.3%$82,773$281,593
Break O'DayTasmania0.51711.6%33.0%$33,773$43,819
West ArnhemNorthern Territory0.48224.2%29.0%$46,865$58,583
ACT(b)Australian Capital Territory0.41935.1%28.9%$71,093$83,003
  1. Proportion of earners in each LGA whose income is in the range of the top quartile, as calculated at the national level.
  2. The Australian Capital Territory has no separate local governments. 

Migrants

In this release, 'migrants' refers to people who have arrived in Australia since January 2000, and includes permanent migrants that have become Australian citizens during this period. 

In 2020-21, 3.8 million migrants who lodged an individual tax return generated $252.4 billion in total personal income.

Most migrant taxpayers were permanent migrants (65.3% or 2.5 million people) who generated $180.5 billion (71.5%) of total migrant income.

  • $118.5 billion (47%) was reported by permanent skilled migrants (1.4 million people)
  • $40.5 billion (16.1%) was reported by permanent family migrants (699,200 people)
  • $15.3 billion (6.1%) was reported by other permanent migrants (208,300 people)
  • $6.2 billion (2.4%) was reported by permanent humanitarian migrants (141,000 people).

Over a third (33.5% or 1.3 million people) were temporary migrants generating $68.2 billion (27%) of total migrant income.

For each visa group, employee income was the main source of income, making up at least 75% of total income received.

Total income by visa group, 2020-21
Visa groupEarners (persons)Total income ($)
Permanent2,457,000180,474,235,700
Permanent Skilled1,408,500118,483,359,000
Permanent Family699,20040,521,255,500
Permanent Humanitarian141,0006,157,187,200
Permanent Other208,30015,312,433,900
Provisional85,3003,760,049,000
Australian Citizen43,1003,728,185,300
NZ citizen (subclass 444)508,40035,734,831,300
Temporary1,260,40068,156,915,600
Temporary Skilled78,5007,750,947,200
Temporary Student268,8007,359,613,000
Temporary Working Holiday Maker52,2001,743,141,700
Temporary Other44,8002,046,159,300
Bridging visas222,5009,762,174,100
Total3,760,500252,359,336,600

Note: Some visa records had missing information and therefore do not contribute to visa category sub-totals.

 

Of total income:

  • skilled migrants had the highest proportion of employee income (90.6%)
  • humanitarian migrants had the highest proportion of own unincorporated business income (11.1%)
  • other permanent migrants had the highest proportion of investment income (13.4%).

For temporary migrants, of their total income:

  • 90% was employee income
  • 6.6% was own unincorporated business income
  • 2.8% was investment income.

Note: These percentages do not add to 100 as total income also includes superannuation and annuities income and other income.

Data downloads

Table 1 - Total income, earners and summary statistics by geography, 2016-17 to 2020-21

Data files
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Table 2 - Total income distribution by geography, 2020-21

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Table 3 - Employee income, earners and summary statistics by geography, 2016-17 to 2020-21

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Table 4 - Employee income, earners and summary statistics by age group, sex and geography, 2016-17 to 2020-21

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Table 5 - Investment income, earners and summary statistics by geography, 2016-17 to 2020-21

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Table 6 - Own unincorporated business income, earners and summary statistics by geography, 2016-17 to 2020-21

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Table 7 - Superannuation income, earners and summary statistics by geography, 2016-17 to 2020-21

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Table 8 - Summary statistics by Greater Capital City Statistical Areas, 2011-12 to 2020-21

Data files
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Table 9 - Migrants, Total income by arrival group, 2017-18 to 2020-21

Data files
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Table 10 - Migrants, Employee income by arrival group , 2017-18 to 2020-21

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Table 11 - Migrants, Investment income by arrival group, 2017-18 to 2020-21

Data files
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Table 12 - Migrants, Own unincorporated business income, 2017-18 to 2020-21

Data files
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All data cubes

Data files
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Post-release changes

08/03/2024:

  • As a result of correcting a small number of records with missing sex and state information, updates have been made to all migrant commentary, table: Total income by visa group 2020-21, graph 3: Sources of personal income by visa group 2020-21, and data Download tables 9-12.

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6524.0.55.002.

Methodology

Personal Income in Australia methodology, 2020-21 financial year

Media releases