Singapore's income inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient, fell to 0.379 in 2025 after accounting for government transfers and taxes, the lowest since records on this measure began in 2015. Before transfers and taxes, the Gini was 0.452. The gap is still wide: households in the top income tenth take home roughly 35 times the market income per person of those in the bottom tenth. What has been narrowing is the gap after the state moves money around, through schemes like Workfare, GST Vouchers, CDC Vouchers and progressive taxes. This article walks through the 2025 numbers from the Department of Statistics, explains what the Gini does and does not capture, looks at the wider wealth gap and how easily people move up the ladder, and shows where you sit and what support you may already qualify for.
Every February the Department of Statistics publishes Key Household Income Trends. The 2025 edition, released in early 2026, is the most current full-year read on income inequality in Singapore. One change to note this year: the report now measures household market income, which includes both employment income and non-employment income (investments, rental, regular CPF and insurance payouts), and it now counts households with no working member. Older reports only looked at employment income among households with at least one worker, so direct comparisons with figures from before 2025 are not apples to apples.
The Gini coefficient is a single number between 0 and 1. Zero means everyone earns exactly the same; 1 means one household earns everything. Singapore's Gini based on household market income per household member was 0.452 in 2025, down from 0.460 in 2024. After government transfers and taxes are factored in, it drops to 0.379, down from 0.381 in 2024. Both readings are the lowest since this market-income series started in 2015.
The difference between those two numbers, 0.452 before and 0.379 after, is the redistribution at work. Transfers and taxes pull the Gini down by about 0.073 points, which is a meaningful shift for a country whose tax rates are low by developed-economy standards.
| Year | Before transfers and taxes | After transfers and taxes |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 0.479 | 0.397 |
| 2021 | 0.466 | 0.403 |
| 2022 | 0.462 | 0.397 |
| 2023 | 0.458 | 0.389 |
| 2024 | 0.460 | 0.381 |
| 2025 | 0.452 | 0.379 |
A Gini number is abstract, so here is the spread in dollars. The report breaks resident households into ten equal groups (deciles) by income per household member, from the lowest tenth to the highest.
In 2025, the average monthly household market income per member in the bottom decile was about $506. In the top decile, employment income alone averaged $14,693 per member, and adding investment, rental and other income pushes the top-decile total to roughly $17,900 per member. That is a top-to-bottom ratio of about 35 times.
Read the bottom decile with care. The expanded measure now sweeps in households made up entirely of non-working people aged 65 and over, who may be living off savings or assets that market income does not capture. In the 1st decile, employment income made up only a small slice; investment income (mostly interest on CPF balances) and other income (mostly CPF Retirement Sum Scheme and CPF LIFE payouts) together made up the bulk. So the bottom decile is partly a story about retirees drawing down CPF savings, not only about low-wage workers.
| Decile | Employment income | Total market income (approx) |
|---|---|---|
| 1st (lowest) | $97 | $506 |
| 2nd | $778 | ~$1,450 |
| 5th | $2,929 | ~$3,740 |
| 8th | $5,863 | ~$7,105 |
| 10th (highest) | $14,693 | ~$17,900 |
Inequality is about the spread, but it helps to know the middle is moving up too. Median monthly household market income grew from $11,558 in 2024 to $12,446 in 2025, a 7.7% rise in nominal terms and 6.8% after adjusting for inflation. Per household member, the median rose from $3,837 to $4,160, up 8.4% nominal or 7.5% real.
The narrowing of inequality shows up in who grew fastest. In 2025, average market income per member rose across every decile, by 3.0% to 12.8% in real terms, with the lower deciles seeing the bigger gains. Over the five years from 2020 to 2025, real income per member grew 1.4% to 10.5% a year depending on the decile, again skewed toward the lower end.
Two caveats keep this honest. First, the bottom decile's numbers bounce around year to year because the baseline is small, so one good or bad year can swing the percentage a lot. Second, deciles are not the same households over time. A family can drop a decile in a year someone loses work, then climb back when they are re-employed, so a decile's growth is not one fixed group of people getting richer.
Singapore does not equalise incomes through high tax rates. The top marginal personal income tax rate is 24%, applied only to chargeable income above $1 million, and most residents pay far less because the system is progressive and the first $20,000 of chargeable income is taxed at 0%. If you want to see where you land, the income tax calculator does the bracket maths for you.
The heavier lifting is done on the transfer side. In 2025, resident households received an average of $7,300 per household member in government transfers. That breaks down to $1,891 in regular contributions (such as Workfare and GST Vouchers), $964 in ad-hoc contributions (such as CDC Vouchers and cost-of-living payments) and $4,445 in transfers in-kind (the value of subsidised services like education and healthcare). The 2025 figure is down from $7,725 in 2024, mostly because one-off 2024 schemes such as the Majulah Package bonuses and a Budget 2024 cost-of-living payment had ended.
The transfers are tilted toward those who need them most. Households in HDB 1- and 2-room flats received an average of $16,519 per member in 2025, more than double the all-household average. And households in the first seven income deciles received more in transfers than they paid in taxes, meaning roughly the bottom 70% are net recipients from the system.
If you are a lower- or middle-income worker, several of these transfers may apply to you directly. The largest for workers is the Workfare Income Supplement.
Workfare tops up Singaporean employees aged 30 and above (any age for persons with disabilities) who earn an average gross monthly income of $500 to $3,000. The maximum annual payout in Work Year 2025 ranges from $2,450 for ages 30 to 34 up to $4,900 for those aged 60 and above. For employees, about 40% is paid in cash and 60% goes to CPF; eligibility is assessed automatically from CPF contributions, so most workers do not need to apply.
On top of that, most Singaporeans get the annual GST Voucher (cash, MediSave and U-Save components, tied to income and property annual value) and CDC Vouchers spendable at heartland shops and supermarkets. Lower-income retirees may receive the Silver Support Scheme. These are exactly the regular and ad-hoc transfers that show up in the inequality data.
The Gini is useful but partial. It measures income in a single year, not wealth, so it says nothing about who owns property, CPF balances, shares or a business. Two households with the same income can sit on very different net worth. If you want to track your own position over time, the net worth calculator is a better personal yardstick than any income figure.
It also misses the life cycle. A 25-year-old fresh graduate and a 55-year-old at peak earnings can be in very different deciles purely because of age, not unfairness. The expanded 2025 measure makes this clearer by including retiree households in the bottom decile, many of whom were higher earners earlier and are now drawing down savings.
And it is sensitive to method. The switch from employment income to market income, and the inclusion of non-working households, changed the picture this year. That is one reason to treat any single Gini number as a snapshot rather than a verdict, and to read it alongside median income, decile growth and the after-transfer figure.
Income is what comes in each year. Wealth is what you have built up: property equity, CPF balances, shares, savings, a business, minus what you owe. The two pull apart, and the gap in wealth is wider than the gap in income. The Ministry of Finance's 2026 occasional paper put it plainly: wealth inequality in Singapore is higher than income inequality, though it sits broadly in line with other advanced economies. Estimates from official analysis place the wealth Gini around 0.55, against an after-transfer income Gini of 0.379.
Why the gap is wider comes down to time. A high income in one year does not make you wealthy; wealth compounds over decades, and the household that bought a flat in 2005 or has been investing since their twenties sits on gains that this year's payslip cannot show. The household sector keeps growing richer in aggregate too. SingStat reported household net worth up 7.3% year on year in the fourth quarter of 2025, driven by property and financial assets, which are held unevenly across households.
Two assets dominate the picture for most Singaporeans: the home and the CPF balance. Residential property and CPF, life-insurance and pension funds are the two largest items on the household sector's balance sheet, well ahead of cash, deposits and listed shares. That has a flattening effect at the bottom, because near-universal home ownership and forced CPF saving give even lower-income households a real stake, which is one reason the bottom rung in Singapore is rarely at zero net worth the way it can be elsewhere. It also means wealth tracks who owns property and who has had years for CPF to compound, not just this year's wage. The net worth calculator is the right tool for seeing your own position, since no income figure captures it.
A snapshot of inequality says nothing about whether people stay put. Mobility asks a different question: if you were born near the bottom, what are your odds of climbing? On the official numbers, Singapore does well. The Ministry of Finance tracked children born to parents in the bottom fifth of incomes and followed them into adulthood. About 14.3% of them reached the top fifth, against 7.5% in the United States, 9.0% in the United Kingdom, 11.7% in Denmark and 13.5% in Canada.
Fewer get stuck, too. Only 24% of Singaporean children born to bottom-fifth parents stayed in the bottom fifth as adults, compared with about 34% in the United States. On absolute mobility, most Singaporeans in their thirties out-earn what their parents did at the same age. The government credits near-universal education, subsidised housing and targeted support for keeping the ladder usable, though it has flagged that holding this rate steady gets harder as a society matures, which is what has happened in older developed economies.
For your own odds, the policy levers are familiar: education and skills are the strongest engine of upward mobility, and the asset side compounds quietly in the background. Topping up CPF, investing early and steadily, and tracking net worth are how a middle income turns into wealth over a working life. See how small, regular investing snowballs in the compounding guide.
| Country | Reached the top fifth |
|---|---|
| Singapore | 14.3% |
| Canada | 13.5% |
| Denmark | 11.7% |
| United Kingdom | 9.0% |
| United States | 7.5% |
Across developed economies, a pre-tax-and-transfer Gini in the 0.45 to 0.50 range is common. What sets countries apart is how much redistribution narrows it. Singapore's drop from 0.452 to 0.379 is real but more modest than high-tax Nordic systems, which is the trade-off for low headline tax rates and an approach that leans on targeted transfers and subsidised services rather than broad cash redistribution.
The direction since 2015 has been gradual narrowing, helped by faster wage growth at the bottom, a higher Workfare ceiling and Progressive Wage Model rules pushing up pay in sectors like cleaning, security and retail. The methodology change makes year-on-year comparison noisier from 2025, but the after-transfer Gini hitting a series low is a genuine signal, not a statistical artefact.
For your own finances, the practical takeaway is to claim what you are entitled to (Workfare, GST and CDC Vouchers, premium subsidies), and to build wealth where income alone will not, by topping up CPF, investing consistently and tracking net worth. A regular budget is the unglamorous first step that makes the rest possible.
0.379 after government transfers and taxes, and 0.452 before. Both are based on household market income per household member and are the lowest since the series began in 2015, according to the Department of Statistics' Key Household Income Trends 2025.
It has narrowed gradually since 2015. The after-transfer Gini fell from 0.397 in 2020 to 0.379 in 2025, and in 2025 the lower income deciles saw faster real income growth than the top. The pre-transfer gap remains wide at 0.452.
In 2025 the top decile of resident households earned roughly $17,900 in market income per member each month, against about $506 in the bottom decile, a ratio near 35 to one. The bottom decile now includes many retiree households living off savings, not just low-wage workers.
Median monthly household market income was $12,446 in 2025, up 6.8% in real terms from $11,558 in 2024. Per household member it was $4,160, up from $3,837.
Mainly through transfers rather than high taxes. In 2025 households received an average of $7,300 per member in transfers (Workfare, GST Vouchers, CDC Vouchers, education and healthcare subsidies). The bottom seven deciles receive more in transfers than they pay in tax, and the top income tax rate is 24% on income above $1 million.
The Department of Statistics expanded the measure from employment income to market income (adding investment, rental and CPF or insurance payouts) and began including households with no working member. This changes the figures, so comparisons with reports before 2025 are not exactly like for like.
No. It measures income in a single year, not assets. It excludes property, CPF balances, investments and businesses, so two households with the same income can have very different net worth. Use a net worth measure to track wealth.
Yes. Wealth inequality is wider than income inequality, with an estimated wealth Gini around 0.55 against an after-transfer income Gini of 0.379. The Ministry of Finance's 2026 paper notes this is broadly in line with other advanced economies. Wealth compounds over decades, so the gap in assets is larger than the gap in any single year's income.
On the official figures, yes, and more than in many peer countries. The Ministry of Finance found that 14.3% of children born to bottom-fifth parents reached the top income fifth as adults, against 7.5% in the United States, 9.0% in the UK, 11.7% in Denmark and 13.5% in Canada. Only 24% of Singaporean children from bottom-fifth parents stayed in the bottom, versus about 34% in the US.
Residential property and CPF, life-insurance and pension balances are the two largest assets on the household sector's balance sheet, well ahead of cash, deposits and listed shares. High home ownership and forced CPF saving give even lower-income households a real stake, which helps keep the bottom rung above zero net worth.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.