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By Yi Whan-woo
The top 0.1 percent of salaried workers in Korea earn nearly 32 times more than middle-income workers, data showed Thursday. As the gap is widening, policymakers are being urged to take measures to increase the income of the lower and middle income brackets.
According to data submitted to Rep. Kang Jun-hyeon of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) regarding the National Tax Service (NTS), it showed that the per capita annual income of the richest 0.1 percent of salaried workers was tallied at 956.15 million won ($725,000) in 2021.
The amount was 31.8 times larger than that of the 30.03 million won figure earned by those in the middle salary bracket.
On a monthly average, the top 1 percent earned 79.67 million won, compared to just 2.5 million won for middle-income workers in the country.
The pace of the increase in the annual salary for the top 0.1 percent stood at 14.7 percent, about four times larger than the 3.7 percent for middle-income earners and 5.1 percent for the entirety of salaried workers.
The data also showed the yearly aggregate wealth of the top 0.1 percent, worth 19.83 trillion won, accounted for 2.4 percent of the income of all salaried workers.
In particular, the income of the top 0.1 percent was nearly equal to that earned by the lowest 17 percent out of all of the salary brackets.
Under the circumstances, the lawmaker urged the government to redirect its fiscal and tax policies so as to "prevent the wealth being excessively concentrated to the haves."
"The DPK will make its utmost efforts to resolve the diverging wealth gap," Kang said.
