Highest average salary equal to income of 3 million people in bottom tier: report

The monthly salary for the country's top 0.1 percent earners averages 54.58 million won ($48,088), a sum equal to the total earned income by 2.95 million people in the bottom 27 percent, statistics from the tax agency showed Wednesday.

The annual salary for the top 0.1 percent, fewer than 20,000 people in number, totaled 11.35 trillion won last year, accounting for 2.02 percent of the 562.59 trillion won paid to all workers. These figures were provided by the National Tax Service to ruling party lawmaker Park Kwang-on ahead of a parliamentary inspection of the government.

Monthly earned income for the highest tier also well exceeded that for the middle bracket, which made an average 1.92 million won. This translates into the top 0.1 percent making 28.5 times more than what the mid-income group gets.

Agency statistics showed that the annual income for the top 1 percent averaged 141.8 million won, and 70 million won for the top 10 percent.

Some 52.35 million people are exempted from income tax because they do not make enough money, according to the statistics. They make up the bottom 30 percent, which earn about 14 million won a year. (Yonhap)