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‘Eat the rich’ is a pretty popular rallying cry in this day and age.
Globally, if you want to rank among the top 1% of earners, you need to be pulling in the sort of dough that can put a target on your back.
In South Africa, the world’s most unequal society, that’s not exactly the case. Using data from The Wealth Report 2021, compiled by Knight Frank, you’ll need to hold a net wealth of $180 000 (around R2,8 million) to make the cut for South Africa’s top 1%.
In terms of monthly earnings, we turn to data from the 2022 World Inequality report.
Compiled by the World Inequality Database, the report states that the top 10% of South African earners take in more than 65% of the total national income.
Conversely, the bottom 50% of earners account for just 5,3% of the total national earnings.
BusinessTech put the data into a simple table:
On those stats, you would need to earn more than R200 000 a month to crack our top 1%. Earning just north of R65 000 a month lands you in the top 10%.
That’s one way to look at it, but those numbers appear to lack some context.
The World Inequality Lab has a tool which gives you certain parameters and then places your earnings in comparison to other South Africans.
If I choose the 90th percentile, putting me in the top 10% only takes around R30 000 a month (with no dependents).
The Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit has a similar tool. If I select R24 000 a month as my post-tax income (roughly R30 000 a month gross), and select a household of one (no dependents), it puts me in the 99th percentile.
That’s the top 1% of earners.
Suffice it to say the figures vary hugely, and obviously differ in terms of how many people you support on your salary, but any South African pulling in more than R200 000 a month is in a very elite club.
