By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's statistics authority announced on Tuesday that wages and salaries held the top share of total income in 2017.
“The rate of wage and salaries got the highest rate with 48.9 percent of total equivalised household disposable income, with a decrease of 0.8 points compared with the previous year, ” TurkStat said.
“This was followed by social transfers with an increase of 0.1 points (19.7 percent) and entrepreneurial incomes with a decrease of 0.2 points (19.6 percent) compared to 2016, ” the institute added.
According to the TurkStat's income and living conditions survey, the share of agricultural income in last year’s entrepreneurial income totaled 21.4 percent, down 3.8 points from 2016.
TurkStat also said pensions and survivor benefits accounted for 91.4 percent of total social transfers in 2017.
Survey results showed that the share of the top quintile — the richest 20 percent of population — by equalized household disposable income was 47.4 percent last year, an annual rise of 0.2 points.
“The share of the bottom quintile [poorest 20 percent of the population] was 6.3 percent, with an increase of 0.1 points in comparison with the previous year, ” TurkStat said.
The institute stated that Gini coefficient — a critical measure of income inequality ranging from 0 (complete equality) to 1 (complete inequality) — was estimated at 0.405 last year, up 0.001 points from 2016.
“The mean annual equivalised household disposable income increased 12.7 percent compared to the previous year from 19,139 Turkish liras [$6,323] to 21,577 Turkish liras [$5,904], ” TurkStat added.
The average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was 3.65 last year, while one dollar was exchanged for 3.03 liras on average in 2016.
TurkStat will release next income and living conditions survey results on September, 2019.
