What is the worldwide median household income?

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 03 Jun 2005 14:06 PDT

The World Bank pegs the Gross National Income for the world as a whole
at $5,510 per person in 2003 (note that this is per person, not per
household).

Does that figure meet your needs, are are you looking for actual
household income data?

pafalafa-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 03 Jun 2005 14:07 PDT

Also, this is just total GNI divided by population, so I don't think
it's a true median figure.

---

Clarification of Question by drtownsend-ga on 03 Jun 2005 15:04 PDT

Hi:
I found out the GNI also, but I was looking for a worldwide median
household income figure so I could compare it with the US and with US
states.
Thanks

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 04 Jun 2005 18:03 PDT

Thanks for adding that explanation of what you're after.  Have a look
at this link from a very handy site called NationMaster, and let me
know if it does the trick:


http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph-T/eco_gdp_cap&int=-1


paf

Do you want PPP or market exchange rate?

Sorry for my ignorance, I don't know those terms.  I am looking for
whatever would compare fairly cleanly to US median household income.
Thanks.

In that case, you probably want purchase power parity (PPP) data. When
you calculate any worldwide data involving money, you have to convert
it all to a single currency for the data to make any sense. When you
covert between different currencies, you can choose either the PPP
exchange rate or the market exchange rate.

PPP adjusts currencies so a person in country A can buy the same
things for the same price as country B. This is a better measure of
individual well-being among people in different countries.

Like everyone else, I'll tell you that it's easy to find per capita
data. Household data looks much more difficult to find... presumably
because tracking household-level data requires a much more detailed
statistical effort.

Thanks for the clarification, maybe PPP is the way to go.  I am trying
to educate my kids on what they have here in the US.  From what I can
tell, the US median household income for 2003 was around $43k.  I
wanted some number to show them the contrast between here and the rest
of the world.  Any suggestions?

HI,
Since figures for median households in different countries are
probably not available, you may have to do with per person income in
each country, but that should do for your idea.

Here is the first site I found with numbers:

http://www.finfacts.com/biz10/globalworldincomepercapita.htm

As I understand it PPP tries to reflect that a US$ buys more (or less)
in different countries, so that with $ 4010/person/year in Mauritius
(for example) may allow a better life style than the $ amount suggests
when we think about how far the amount would go in the States.  In
Norway, with its very high
$ income/person figure, cost of living is - I believe -  higher than
in the States, so people are not necessarily better off there.

Also, a lot of the people in the countries at the bottom of the list
are subsistence farmers, living from what they can grow, something
that probably does not get into the GDI statistics.

Your $ 43k median household income figure was calculated entirely
differently than the GDI/person figures, as you know, the median being
a more representative figure than a straight average that lumps in
Bill Gates with everyone else.

Here is a UNICEF site (but it really doesn't provide much more than the first list:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html

A search with  "income per" "per country"
brings up lots of sites.  Perhaps you can find something else.

I like your project.  Good luck, Myoarin