How far is the typical person from the average?

Median income as a share of mean income, European and OECD countries. The lower the share, the further the person in the middle is from the "average" income. Most recent value per country (39 of 45 are income years 2023-24); 4 of 49 countries in scope have no data.

What is measured: median equivalised disposable income (the person in the middle) divided by the mean (the average). Disposable income is household income after taxes and benefits; "equivalised" adjusts it for household size. "The typical person has X% of the average income" means the median is X% of the mean. Tiers: below 73% of the average, 73% to 82%, 82% to 90%, 90% or more.

How to read it

• Sources. European countries: Eurostat (EU-SILC survey). Non-European OECD members: the OECD Income Distribution Database, hatched. Each country's series comes from one source only; the two are never combined.
• The sources differ in method (how income is adjusted for household size, and how years are labelled). Where both cover the same country and year, their ratios agree within ±0.03 in 95% of cases. OECD values that close to a tier line are marked with a circle.
• United Kingdom. Eurostat stopped covering the UK after income year 2017, so the latest view shows the OECD value (hatched). For the UK the OECD ratio is 0.039 lower on average (0.011 to 0.061 lower, survey years 2005-2018) than Eurostat's, so the UK's latest value is probably understated. The yearly views show only the Eurostat series.
• Tier lines (0.73, 0.82, 0.90): 0.73 and 0.82 sit in the widest gaps between neighbouring countries; 0.90 is the only place the central cluster of countries can be split. Continuous shows the same values on one smooth scale, without the lines.
• Years are income years: the survey asks about the previous year's income. The latest view mixes years (2020-2025); the hover shows each country's year. Most are 2023-2024; older values have a dashed outline (Australia 2020, Japan 2021, Mexico 2022, Chile 2022, New Zealand 2022). A country's ratio moves slowly: in Eurostat's data the typical change is 0.008 over one year and 0.012 over four, and 9 in 10 changes are under 0.025 and 0.039. So an older value can differ from today's by about as much as the two sources differ, which matters only near a tier line.
• Grey: in scope but no data (the hover says why). Plain land: outside this project's scope.
• Kosovo: the base map draws Kosovo's territory as part of Serbia, so that area shows Serbia's colour and data. Kosovo's own value is in the data download.
• Scroll to zoom; drag to move once zoomed in. World and Europe reset the view. Small countries (Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus) are a few pixels wide: zoom in and hover.
• Official statistics from Eurostat and the OECD. Data: latest view (CSV), all years (CSV). Source code (method and data decisions included).