How has your income changed?

19 December 2019

A new interactive web tool lets people see how incomes have changed where they live, Stats NZ said today.

“Our tool demonstrates what we can do solely from tax data and is part of ongoing work to develop new statistics using existing data,” analytics manager Alan Bentley said.

“For example, we can see that median annual income for women in their early 40s in the Gore district increased from $27,800 in 2009 to $37,400 in 2017.”

Stats NZ’s new experimental web tool lets you see how your income compares with the rest of New Zealand for your age group and sex, by region or district, from Gore to Whangarei. You can also see how median incomes have changed across New Zealand.

Find out about the tool and the data behind it at Experimental estimates of income from linked administrative data.

Figure 1: Image of new web tool showing regional annual median income of 25–29-year-old men

Text alternative for figure 1, image of new web tool showing regional annual median income of 25–29-year-old men

Tax data allows more detailed estimates, including breakdowns by age, sex, region, and district. Previously we could only produce such detailed estimates every five years from census data.

About the data

These annual median income estimates only include income from wages, salaries, and self-employed income sources, and do not include any income from government benefits, investments, or other similar income sources.

Including self-employed income in these estimates means we can only produce estimates from 2009 to 2017. (The latest data is from two years ago, since tax forms from self-employed income can be submitted up to two years after their reference period.)

Additionally, the counts for people with self-employed income, and people earning a wage or salary have some overlap. This is because an individual can earn from both income sources. It is relatively common for New Zealanders to supplement their main income with an additional income source (see Kiwis work hard at multiple jobs).

For income data in areas smaller than territorial authorities, see Statistical area 1 dataset for 2018 Census for areas containing about 100–200 people.

We also recently released a new monthly employment indicators series, showing the number of filled jobs and gross earnings of wages and salaries in New Zealand (see New monthly snapshot of jobs and wages).

The Government Statistician authorises all statistics and data we publish.

For more information about these statistics:
• Visit How has your income changed?

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