Below is the income distribution of Malaysian household as published by the Department of Statistics in its 2009 Household Income Survey. Income is measured in ringgit Malaysia per month.
The red bar more or less describes the median Malaysian household in terms of income.
7 replies on “[2626] Income distribution of Malaysian households, 2009”
Hi, based on the statistic above, on income distribution, how do you categorized them into low income, middle income and high income in Malaysia? what is the range for each of them? Thanks.
@Bobby
Just to share some details:
The survey covers over 40,000 households numbering over 180,000 people across Malaysia – even if that’s less than 1% of the total number, it’s still a fair representation of the Malaysian population. With that sample size, sample error should be fairly low.
It’s a household survey by the way, not LHDN. LHDN data would be biased upwards.
Also, if you think these numbers are bad, you should see the numbers from previous surveys.
@moo_t
Actual average is 1.8 income earners per household, with average household size of about 4.3.
Do you expect household to earn more than RM3,000?
If so, I find it hard to believe most people earn significantly more than what it is at the moment. It could be skewed, but what’s the true alternative? I prefer empirics than anedotes. Everybody has an anedote anyway and anecdotes can be very confusing because of that, especially so when we all live in our own silos. We don’t mix around very much with those from other income classes to have full view about our income relative to the others’.
You say you’re in the top 3% and you’re disbelieving that, scraping by and all. The thing is, it doesn’t take into account your expenditure. If you’re struggling with your expenditure, that’s in no way says anything about the truth value of whether you’re within the 3% top income earning. Income’s still income. The context of the data is important and I think you’re taking the data out of context.
Besides, this reminds me of another survey in, New York. Individuals earning above $750,000 per year thought they were solidly middle class. The truth is, they’re already sitting at the top of their class. I see pararrel to that survey with your disbelief.
First, it shows that only 55% earn RM3k and below.
A little hard to stomach.
Sorry for not being clear, but what do you think of these ratios?
I remember (pls correct if wrong) that our GDP’s been hovering around 30k per capita so maybe it’s possible that the median is correct, but I don’t think these percentages are accurate.
The numbers gleaned from this particular survey could’ve been skewed due to inaccurate survey population or maybe based on wrong numbers (i.e. LHDN figures, as if people always declare their income accurately).
US has got a fiscal cliff, I think we’ve got an income cliff.
Btw, based on this chart, I’m in the top 3% and I’m barely scraping by.
So what does that say?
moo_t is right, we’re in deep doo-doo.
husband+wife+ 2 children, avg 2.5k~3k. And better still, 50% of family is in debt.
What are you questioning?
Seriously?
Wow.
What do YOU say/believe?