Downtown Seoul skyline view (Image courtesy of Pixabay)
SEOUL, Feb. 11 (Korea Bizwire) – The top 0.1 percent of wage earners in Seoul made an average of 1.4 billion won (US$1.05 million) in 2022, triple the amount earned by the same cohort in Gangwon Province, data showed Sunday.
According to the data compiled by the National Tax Service and released by Rep. Yang Kyung-sook of the main opposition Democratic Party, there were 6,213 people in the top 0.1 percent wage bracket in Seoul.
The southern island of Jeju came second with 1 billion won, followed by Gyeonggi Province with 950 million won. The region where the top 0.1 percent earned the least was Gangwon at 463 million won.
On a national scale, the average total pay for the top 0.1 percent came to 988 million won.
The gap between the highest-paid and the lowest-paid was also biggest in Seoul, where the top 20 percent earned an annual average of 120 million won, 18 times more than the lowest 20 percent at 6.67 million won.
Busan came second with a gap of 15.5 times between the two cohorts, followed by Gyeonggi with a gap of 14.6 times.
“Not only is there a large income gap between cities and provinces, the level of polarization within each region is also serious,” Yang said. “In order to solve the issue of income inequality, each region has to focus on developing new growth engines and creating quality jobs.”
(Yonhap)
