Skip to main content

Budget 2024: The Government has announced FamilyBoost, a proposed new childcare payment to help eligible families with the rising costs of Early Childhood Education (ECE). Find out more: Beehive.govt.nz

Register
Search tips
Tax statistics

The proportion of individuals with wage and salary income over $150,000 has increased from 0.6% of salary and wage earners in 2002 to 5.1% to 2023. In 2023, 2.9% of individuals receive wage and salary income of $180,000 or more.

The graph above has 4 lines showing the number of individuals with wage and salary income by income amount for the years to 31 March 2002, 2012, 2022 and 2023. The vertical axis shows the number of individuals. The horizonal axis shows incomes between $10,000 and $200,000. The graph shows how the income distributions have changed over time as incomes generally increase. In 2002 the mode (the most common) income band was $30,000, increasing to $38,000 in 2012, $51,000 in 2022 and $60,000 in 2023.

The graph above shows the number of individuals with wage and salary income by income band over $10,000. The number of individuals earning less than $10,000 in wage and salary is not shown in the graph but is in the tables that can be downloaded from the datasets page.

Wage and salary statistics datasets

The effect of increases to wages and salaries over the last 21 years plus an overall increase in the number of wage and salary earners has resulted in the mode wage and salary income amount increasing over time. In 2002, the mode wage and salary income was $30,000 and 65% of individuals earned less than $30,000. By 2023, the mode wage and salary income has increased to $60,000 while 65% of individuals earned less than $69,000.

Last updated: 12 Sep 2023
Jump back to the top of the page