§ Mr. Cousins: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the income thresholds were for each decile of the household income distribution in (a) 1997–98 and (b) the most recent available 12-month period. [149640]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Jim Cousins dated 20 January 2004:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking for the income threshold for each decile of the household income distribution in 1997–98 and the most recent available 12-month period. which is 2001–02.
1114WEstimates in the following table are produced from the Office for National Statistics' analysis "The effects of taxes and benefits on household income" published on the National Statistics website on October 21st 2003 at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/taxesbenefits. The analysis includes measures of income inequality for the United Kingdom as a whole based on data from the Expenditure and Food Survey.
The table shows, for the UK in 1997–98 and 2001–02. the boundaries between equivalised disposable income deciles for all households. Equivalisation is a standard methodology that takes into account the size and composition of households and adjusts their incomes to recognise differing demands on resources. For example, the 1st decile boundary is the income level below which one tenth of households are estimated to lie.
Income decile 1997–98 2001–02 Bottom 6,766 8,214 2nd 8,504 10,356 3rd 10,146 12,361 4th 11,922 14,670 5th 13,917 17,179 6th 16,342 19,910 7th 19,316 23,691> 8th 23,457 28,469 9th 30,451 37,095 Top Source:
Office for National Statistics, based on the analysis 'The effects of taxes and benefits on household income', published on the National Statistics website and in Economic Trends.