What this means
Compare a salary with the right employees
Korean pay statistics describe employee jobs active in December 2024, including part-time work and jobs held for only part of the month. Someone with several jobs contributes several records. The published national, age-group and gender pay bands support ranges, not precise point percentiles. Age × gender means and medians let you compare amounts, but cannot establish a joint percentile. Annual regular pay is divided by 12; it is not compared with an observed annual salary distribution.
Know your take-home pay, or work backward
The Korean March–December 2026 model uses the official March 1 withholding table and employee insurance rates, with the pension limits changing in July. Adjust eligible family members, children, meal allowance and insurer-reported bases. Net pay can be reversed into a compatible estimated gross amount. The model covers ordinary insured resident employees aged 18–59 and regular pay from one job; bonuses and special profiles are outside its scope. Twelve times one month’s net pay is not an annual tax settlement.
Your age and your household head’s age are different
The household tab has separate optional head-age and head-gender benchmarks from the 2025 survey. These show group medians and averages for 2024 income and March 31, 2025 net worth. No subgroup percentile is inferred from those amounts. Age and gender benchmarks are separate, not a joint age × gender distribution, and they do not change the existing national ranks or 50/50 score.
Compare your whole financial household
For Korea, add household members’ 2024 pretax employment income, business income after expenses, property income, and regular transfers; exclude irregular windfalls. For the U.S., use the SCF family: people sharing their main finances, excluding financially independent roommates. Its income includes realized capital gains and retirement-account withdrawals. Choose the country independently of the page language.
Assets minus debts: what belongs in net worth?
Include market-value property, savings, and investments, then subtract debts. In Korea, refundable housing deposits you paid as a tenant are assets; deposits you owe tenants as a landlord are liabilities. U.S. SCF wealth also includes vehicles, business equity, and retirement-account balances, but not future Social Security or defined-benefit pension promises. Negative net worth is valid.
Read a numerical estimate with its limits
Korean household income of KRW 70 million lies between published P50 (KRW 58 million) and P60 (KRW 70.93 million): linear interpolation estimates percentile 59.3, or top 40.7%. The official P50–P60 interval stays visible. U.S. estimates use weighted empirical distributions from the 2025 SCF public sample, averaged over five imputations, with tied values at their weighted midrank. Its five-point display bands are derived, not official intervals. One decimal does not imply exact measurement.
How income and wealth combine
Each marginal percentile contributes 50% of the score. Korea’s separate published distributions support a reference score, not its national percentile. U.S. joint records let us apply the same scoring function to every sampled family and rank your score within their weighted score distribution. This custom economic-standing percentile is not an official government ranking. A score of 60 does not automatically mean percentile 60.
Your financial security is more than a ranking
A high income can coexist with heavy debt; lower expenses can support a stable life. These historical national benchmarks do not adjust for age, household size, region, or living costs. Use your savings, spending, and retirement goals alongside the comparison.
Good questions
Which dates should I enter?
Korea’s 2025 survey records calendar-2024 income and net worth on March 31, 2025. The U.S. 2025 SCF records 2024 income and wealth at the 2025 survey date. Enter U.S. income in 2024 USD and wealth in 2025 USD: we reversed the official extract’s income adjustment (4750/4625) to match 2024 dollars. We do not convert your inputs or currencies.
What happens beyond the supported range?
Korea’s numerical coverage is P10–P90; beyond it, only bottom-10% or top-10% bands are supported. U.S. numerical coverage is conservatively limited to weighted P5–P95; tails get bands without finer point ranks. If either marginal rank is a band, the combined result becomes a bounded reference score, not a population percentile.
Why does Korea have a score instead of a combined percentile?
MDIS lists the 2025 household master data, but its records require login, and their weights, joint variables, and reuse permission were not validated for this site. Two independent national distributions do not reveal how income and wealth are paired. We therefore show the supported 50/50 reference score only.
How are the U.S. imputations handled?
The public extract contains 4,360 families, each with five imputed versions, not 21,800 independent families. We normalize survey weights within each version and average the five weighted cumulative distributions equally. The same paired scoring function builds the composite distribution. Replicate-weight standard errors and confidence intervals are not calculated. Disclosure edits can make public-sample results differ from internal official tables.
Does KB’s report give my household percentile?
No. KB’s individual financial-asset threshold and separate wealthy-respondent survey describe different populations. The optional context does not enter any national household ranking.