Looking at the overall income structure of entertainment and sports stars, income polarization is evident, with very few top earners accounting for more than half of the total income of the workers. (image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Oct. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — The income imbalance for singers and athletes is becoming serious.
According to data submitted to Rep. Kim Doo-kwan from the National Tax Service, the annual total income of the top 28 earners, or one percent of the 2,758 who reported income as singers, was 136.5 billion won (US$117 million).
This means the top one percent earned an average of 4.875 billion won (US$4.2 million)per person.
Business income refers to the amount excluding office rent from sales and necessary expenses such as drivers, coordinators and office operation costs.
Meanwhile, for athletes, the income gap has been confirmed to be larger than that of singers.
In 2017, 22,660 people reported 471.2 billion won in income, with the top 1 percent accounting for 260.5 billion won, which represents 55 percent of the total income.
The business income of athletes has been on the rise every year. A total of 59,801 athletes reported a total of 1.26 trillion won in business income over the three years from 2015 to 2017.
Looking at the overall income structure of entertainment and sports stars, Kim pointed out that income polarization is evident, with very few top earners accounting for more than half of the total income of the workers.
D. M. Park (dmpark@koreabizwire.com)
